Speaker 1: Former Homeland Security Secretary j Johnson testified before the House
Speaker 1: Intelligence Committee this morning that it's a fact, plain and
Speaker 1: simple that the Russian government, at the direction of Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin himself, orchestrated cyber attacks on the US in for
Speaker 1: the purpose of influencing the presidential election. Johnson said last
Speaker 1: fall there was a growing list of states where Homeland
Speaker 1: saw scanning and probing around voter registration databases, and at
Speaker 1: least one or two instances the effort was successful at
Speaker 1: an intrusion. So there was a growing list, and we
Speaker 1: saw the scope of this activity expanding as time progressed,
Speaker 1: and then eventually in January, we were in a position
Speaker 1: to say that this this activity itself was also the
Speaker 1: Russian government. Johnson says, Russian cyber attacks are going to
Speaker 1: get worse before they get better, and at this time
Speaker 1: those on the offense the Russians have the upper hand.
Speaker 1: Joining me are Bradley Moss Apartment Mark Said, and William Banks,
Speaker 1: director of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism
Speaker 1: at Syracuse Law School. Bratt Johnson described in detail how
Speaker 1: they saw the growing Russian probing around voter registration databases,
Speaker 1: so they had the knowledge yet they didn't seem to
Speaker 1: have the ability to do anything about it, and do
Speaker 1: they yet well, And this is part of the way
Speaker 1: we've set up our electoral system is that it's set
Speaker 1: up set in a decentralized manner and controlled by the states.
Speaker 1: We don't have a quote unquote national election. We actually
Speaker 1: have fifty individual state elections, and each state has its
Speaker 1: own rules for handling them based on the county and
Speaker 1: the local level. So what the former secretary was describing
Speaker 1: was they were attempting, and there was some pushback from
Speaker 1: the individual states. They were attempting to coordinate with the
Speaker 1: states to raise these concerns and to find a mechanism
Speaker 1: by which DHS could provide assistance and to ensure the
Speaker 1: stability and the safety of the total process without infringing
Speaker 1: upon the state's sovereign rights to run their election process
Speaker 1: in cordance with state laws. And I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the problem we're gonna always have going forward. You know,
Speaker 1: you heard it in the secretary's testimony. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of pushback, a lot of concern about federal overreach
Speaker 1: into the electoral process. And I don't know if there
Speaker 1: is a necessarily silver bullet to fix it. Certainly, the
Speaker 1: designation as critical infrastructure by the former secretary and the
Speaker 1: reaffirmation of that by the current Secretary of DHS, I
Speaker 1: believe was a good move. But we're always going to
Speaker 1: have some level of vulnerability given the way the decentralized
Speaker 1: manner in which we conduct elections. Bill. At the Senate
Speaker 1: Intelligence Committee, where they had hearings on the same issue,
Speaker 1: the Under Secretary for Cybersecurity at DHS said there's evidence
Speaker 1: that one state election systems were targeted. Johnson said that
Speaker 1: what he knows from open source is that thirty nine
Speaker 1: states were hacked. Do you know the number? And why
Speaker 1: is the Department of Homeland Security still not willing to
Speaker 1: disclose which state election systems were hacked? Well, the number
Speaker 1: I've read in the media is thirty nine as well.
Speaker 1: I probably read the same reports that Johnson did, and
Speaker 1: I think it's uh as Brad said, these are these
Speaker 1: are fifty separate systems, and so it's it's up to
Speaker 1: the states to decide whether to reveal the extent to
Speaker 1: which their systems have been threatened or intruded upon. I
Speaker 1: think one of the key points here is sort of ironic,
Speaker 1: even though Uh, the offense has got the upper hand.
Speaker 1: As you said in your lead, in the fact that
Speaker 1: we have such a federalized system here was such a
Speaker 1: wide stratification of election layers and officials down to the
Speaker 1: county level, actually makes our system more resilient. It's harder
Speaker 1: to damage the thousands of jurisdictions where our elections are
Speaker 1: conducted in hell. Brad Johnson said that he was not
Speaker 1: happy that the d n C would not allow them
Speaker 1: to help, even though the d n C had been
Speaker 1: in contact with the FBI. Is there any reason why
Speaker 1: the d n C would allow them to help when
Speaker 1: how much help could they give? Well, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: this and this. It was kind of a back and
Speaker 1: forth in terms of web not a d n C
Speaker 1: should have turned over the server or if providing the
Speaker 1: analysis by I believe it was called crowd strike or
Speaker 1: cloud strike, whatever the name of the third party vendor
Speaker 1: was who did the analysis, was sufficient the one under
Speaker 1: the one issue and how I understand my view of
Speaker 1: why d n the DNC was probably hesitant was the
Speaker 1: same reason corporations are hesitant in general. Whenever I have
Speaker 1: to provide data, it's proprietary data. So yes, there is a,
Speaker 1: you know, an abstract concept of well, why wouldn't they
Speaker 1: just hand over the server to the FBI and d
Speaker 1: h S so that they could fully investigate and conduct
Speaker 1: forensic analysis. On the other hand, if you d n C,
Speaker 1: you've got your own interests, your own proprietary interest in
Speaker 1: protecting that data, and you're to have reservations about handing
Speaker 1: it handing it over to a government entity. And I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of what played out here to the
Speaker 1: detriment of the d n C. I've been talking with
Speaker 1: Bradley Moss, partner at Mark Said, and William Banks, director
Speaker 1: of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism at
Speaker 1: Syracuse Law School, about former Homeland Secretary Security Secretary J.
Speaker 1: Johnson's testimony this morning before the House Intelligence Committee. His
Speaker 1: testimony about the cyber vulnerabilities in Our Election Infrastructure Itself Bill.
Speaker 1: Last week, there was a data breach, a Republican National
Speaker 1: Committee data breach that led to the exposure of a
Speaker 1: hundred and nine million voter files including names, mailing addresses,
Speaker 1: phone numbers, dates of birth, etcetera. That's just about the
Speaker 1: entire registered voter list in the US, and the third
Speaker 1: party vendor involved in the breach said, it was accept
Speaker 1: full responsibility. If we have breaches like this, what hope
Speaker 1: is there for there to be any any security? A
Speaker 1: certain way of bad one. And you know, it reminds
Speaker 1: us that the first layer of defense here are the
Speaker 1: electoral systems themselves. They need better security. And the security
Speaker 1: can't come from the federal government or be imposed by
Speaker 1: the federal government. It has to be developed on a
Speaker 1: state by state basis, and sometimes even at lower levels
Speaker 1: of government security systems are there. In the case last week,
Speaker 1: it was simply simple sloppiness that allowed the breach to occur.
Speaker 1: The public officials and their and their hardware and software
Speaker 1: need to be a top notch, but also the people
Speaker 1: who are managing the systems need to be well trained
Speaker 1: and need to be very vigilant. Let's turn our focus
Speaker 1: now to another part of the Russia investigation, and that's
Speaker 1: Michael Flynn. It's hard to believe, Brad that Lynn was
Speaker 1: only the National Security Advisor for twenty five days, because
Speaker 1: he seems to be near the center of every investigation
Speaker 1: of Russian interference. Um he publicized his request for immunity,
Speaker 1: his attorney wrote that General Flynn certainly has a story
Speaker 1: to tell, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told MSNBC that he
Speaker 1: suspects Flynn is already cooperating with the FBI. Is if
Speaker 1: that is happening, is there a problem with giving him
Speaker 1: I suspect they gave him some kind of immunity, doesn't
Speaker 1: isn't that problematic for the other investigations. Well, the immunity
Speaker 1: that would be granted would be coming from the FBI
Speaker 1: in the sense that they would be most likely striking
Speaker 1: a plea deal for lack of about our term in
Speaker 1: terms of Dave agreed between the parties, between the FBI
Speaker 1: and Mr Flynn's attorney that Mr Flynn ultimately publicly plea
Speaker 1: guilty to some lower level offenses, most likely issues in
Speaker 1: terms of his answers to the FBI investigators and on
Speaker 1: his security clearance paper work where he appeared to have
Speaker 1: provided false service leading information, and in response, they will
Speaker 1: make sex sentence sensing recommendations and they'll allow him to
Speaker 1: provide extensive additional details on whatever he knows whatever he
Speaker 1: was involved in while with the campaign that may be
Speaker 1: relevant to the Russia investigation without him having to worry
Speaker 1: about incriminating himself and facing additional criminal liability. This is
Speaker 1: a common tactic by law enforcement to basically go for
Speaker 1: the smaller fish, pick up what information you can strike,
Speaker 1: and plea deal with them, so they plead to some
Speaker 1: lower offense and use it if you see something as
Speaker 1: a larger, more tantalizing, uh target going down the line.
Speaker 1: And that's always what we've been wondering here, is whether
Speaker 1: just certain rogue officials within the campaign doing stupid things,
Speaker 1: or is there something more to this? And I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to wait a while, probably months, if
Speaker 1: not the year or two, and so we truly have
Speaker 1: the answer to that question. Bill, explain the difference between
Speaker 1: what the FBI is investigating and what Mueller is investigating. Well,
Speaker 1: the FBI is continuing a counter intelligence investigations, still trying
Speaker 1: to learn what happened, uh with regard to the Russians
Speaker 1: and Mueller courses. Also, as Brad's comments just suggested, he's
Speaker 1: in investigating the implication that the Trump campaign or Trump
Speaker 1: officials administration officials were somehow colluding in this enterprise. So
Speaker 1: I have to remember that they both executive branch investigations.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about the congressional investigations here, So both
Speaker 1: are prosecutorial in that sense that they have a fairly
Speaker 1: different focus, and there's there are also um officials apparently
Speaker 1: at the FBI, BRAD, the CIA, the Office of the
Speaker 1: Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Justice greed
Speaker 1: in January, and we heard some of the testimony that
Speaker 1: Flynn posed a problem, Yet the CIA continue to share
Speaker 1: sensitive intelligence with him. A Trump administration official told The
Speaker 1: New York Times that the CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, did
Speaker 1: not share the agency's concerns with the president. Do you
Speaker 1: see a problem with security on different levels with this administration.
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to say it's you mean, how has it
Speaker 1: to say that it's something extraordinary out of the usual
Speaker 1: in terms of how they're handling it, only because we're
Speaker 1: so new with this one and we don't quite know
Speaker 1: if they're just getting their sea legs. I will say
Speaker 1: that the fact that someone who several agencies viewed is
Speaker 1: compromised and suffect the blackmail, was allowed to maintain his
Speaker 1: access to classified information and continue sitting in on meetings
Speaker 1: discussing our most sensitive national security secrets set off a
Speaker 1: lot of red flags about whether the officials, particularly the
Speaker 1: senior officials in this eight House are doing their proper
Speaker 1: due diligence in safeguarding classified information. You know, I could
Speaker 1: certainly stay. If it's one of my clients who was
Speaker 1: being viewed as subject to blackmail to the extent that
Speaker 1: Mr Flynn was, their access would have been immediately suspended
Speaker 1: pending further investigation. There have been counterintelligence polygraphs and all
Speaker 1: the manner of things before they were ever allowed back
Speaker 1: into a room with classified information. The President, of course,
Speaker 1: can override any of that. But I don't get the
Speaker 1: sense the President knew about it, and I don't even
Speaker 1: know yet. And this is what the New York Times
Speaker 1: story didn't truly flesh out. I don't know if Pompeo
Speaker 1: didn't tell him because he decided it wasn't something the
Speaker 1: President didn't need to know, or because Pompeo himself didn't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know how compartmentalized this information was. We will
Speaker 1: have to be. We'll have to leave it at that
Speaker 1: for today. Thank you, Brad Moss, Partner, Mark Sade, and
Speaker 1: William Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and
Speaker 1: counter Terrorism at Syriges Law School,