US accuses Russia of ‘pervasive’ election meddling

Symbol copyright Reuters Image caption (L-R) White Area National Security Marketing Consultant John Bolton, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Division of Fatherland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and National Safety Agency Director General Paul Nakasone at

Mr Bolton progressed to keep up that it have been discussed.

“President Putin mentioned the primary issue that President Trump raised used to be election meddling,” the national safety adviser informed reporters.

Mr Coats used to be asked if he was once accusing rogue Russian individuals or the Kremlin itself of intervening in US elections.

“Each,” the intelligence director replied.

He mentioned the hackers were looking to steal knowledge from applicants and executive officers and have been seeking to influence electorate thru social media bots.

Mr Coats stated: “Our center of attention here nowadays is just to inform the yankee folks we recognize the threat. it is actual.”

He brought that companies were assembly weekly to focus on election security sooner than the mid-term elections in November whilst so much of the united states Congress faces the electorate.

Ms Nielsen mentioned: “Our democracy itself is within the crosshairs.

“Loose and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has develop into transparent that they have got turn out to be the objective of our adversaries.”

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Media captionThe techniques Trump and Putin see eye to eye

President Donald Trump used to be strongly criticised ultimate month for no longer condemning alleged Russian actions, even as he used to be in Helsinki.

He has regularly called investigations into the problem – and whether his campaign staff colluded with Moscow in 2016 – as a witch-hunt.

but the message from the White House on Thursday couldn’t had been clearer.

The FBI director stated: “Russia tried to intervene with the closing election and keeps to engage in malign influence operations to at the moment.

“this is a risk that we need to take extraordinarily significantly.”

The NSA director stated his agency and US Cyber Command had been “ready to habits operations towards the ones actors attempting to undermine our nation’s midterm elections”.