New Senate Intelligence report shows “extensive” Russia 2016 election interference

It also notes that Russia targeted voting systems in all 50 states.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released the first section of its report on 2016 Russian interference, which found that hackers likely tried to access election systems in all 50 states, confirming widespread fears that America’s election system may not be secure from attack.

For the past two and a half years, the panel led by Chair Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has reviewed the intelligence that the Kremlin sought to meddle in the last presidential election, an effort separate from the highly partisan probe in the House that ended in 2018 and found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The document released on Thursday afternoon — one day after former special counsel Robert Mueller testified in front of Congress on his effort — is not the entirety of the committee’s findings. It’s one of five volumes the panel will release over the coming month. This report focuses specifically on Russian efforts to infiltrate election infrastructure — that is, the actual systems that allow citizens to vote across the country.

The heavily redacted report contains almost entirely known information, so in that sense it’s not a bombshell document. But it does detail how Russia “directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against US election infrastructure at the state and local level.”

It underscores two vital points: 1) that determined foreign actors can gain access to America’s election infrastructure, and 2) Russia is skilled and willing to meddle inside of it.

“The facts are clear: The Russian government mounted a deliberate and systematic attack on America’s election infrastructure in 2016,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), a member of the committee and a 2020 presidential candidate, said in an emailed statement to reporters.