COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
- VIII. (U) THE ROLE OF DHS AND INTERACTIONS WITH THE STATES
(U) The federal government's actions to address election security threats evolved significantly from the summer of 2016 through the summer of 2018. Contemporaneous with the Russian attacks, DHS and FBI were initially treating the situation as they would a typical notification of a cyber incident to a non-governmental victim. By the fall of 2016, however, DHS was attempting to do more extensive outreach to the states. Then in the fall of 2017, DHS undertook an effort to provide a menu of cyber support options to the states.
- A. (U) DHS's Evolution
For DHS and other agencies and departments tasked with intelligence collection or formulating policy options through the interagency process, the full scope of the threat began to emerge in the summer of 2016. Secretary Johnson told the Committee that "I know I had significant concerns by [summer of 2016] about doing all we could to ensure the cybersecurity of our election systems."[1] Mr. Daniel said in his interview that by the end of July, the interagency was focused on better protecting electoral infrastructure as part of a "DHS and FBI-led domestic effort."[2]
Policymakers quickly realized, however, that DHS was poorly positioned to provide the kind of support states needed. Mr. Daniel said that interagency discussions about the threat "start[ed] a process of us actually realizing that, frankly, we don't actually have very much in the way of capability that we can directly offer the states"—a fact that the states themselves would later echo.[3]
- Ms. Monaco said that DHS initially found a "pretty alarming variance in the number of voting registration databases and lack of encryption and lack of backup for all of these things."[4] Ms. Monaco added that "[i]n light of what we were seeing, in light of the intelligence we were getting briefed on, this was a very specific direction and decision to say we need to really accelerate this, put a significant push on resources and engagement at the senior-most levels."[5]
- Mr. Daniel and the working group identified DHS's cyber teams as possible assistance to the states. "DHS had teams that could go and provide that support to the private sector. We've been doing that. That's a program that existed for years for critical
- ↑ (U) SSCI Transcript of the Interview with Jeh Johnson, Former Secretary of Homeland Security, held on Monday, June 12, 2017, p. 10.
- ↑ (U) SSCI Transcript of the Interview with Michael Daniel, Former Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator, National Security Council, held on Wednesday, August 31, 2017, p. 28.
- ↑ (U) Ibid., p. 38.
- ↑ (U) SSCI Transcript of the Interview with Lisa Monaco, Former Homeland Security Advisor, held on Thursday, August 10, 2017, SSCI interview of Lisa Monaco, August 10, 2017, p. 19.
- ↑ (U) Ibid., p. 21.
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COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
