Obama Wants Review of US Election Results

Hack the Vote? Obama Wants Review of US Election Results
In what smacks of comic irony, US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of cyberattacks and “foreign intervention” in the 2016 US Presidential election, a day after Georgia’s Secretary of State accused the US Department of Homeland Security of attempting to hack the state’s voter-registration database.

Sputnik, 

9 Deember, 2016

Hack the Vote? Obama Wants Review of US Election Results

On Thursday, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp posted to Facebook that he was told about a failed attempt to breach a firewall protecting the state’s voter registration database, by an IP address associated with the Department of Homeland Security.

Kemp stated that he sent a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson demanding to know the reasoning for the attempted hack. He is also seeking to learn if the department sought to breach the networks of any other states.

"It's outrageous to think about our own federal government is doing this to us," Kemp told WSB-TV Atlanta.

The DHS responded to the letter, stating that they are “looking into the matter.”

“DHS takes the trust of our public and private sector partners seriously, and we will respond to Secretary Kemp directly,” according to the statement. Earlier this week, Democratic members of Congress demanded in a letter that President Obama brief them on “Russian interference” in the election before leaving office. California congressman Adam Schiff was one of those who signed.

To promote what many are considering to be an increasingly misguided campaign of blame for Trump’s unlikely election, the California Democrat appeared on Fox News, and was subsequently humiliated by host Tucker Carlson. Schiff repeatedly asserted that the “intelligence community” believes Russia to be behind the hacks of Democratic Party operatives, and was smacked down by Carlson.

FoxNews Host Destroys Democratic Lawmaker Over Russian Hacking Claims
 

“Here’s the thing,” Carlson said, “I’ve lived here a long time, I remember vividly the ‘massive stockpiles of WMD’s in Iraq,’ which the intelligence community assured us were there, and they weren’t, so pardon my skepticism, I think it’s a patriotic position.”

Despite the fact that there appears to be a problem with hacks from within their own agency, DHS adviser Lisa Monaco told reporters on Friday that cyberattacks and foreign intervention may have crossed what she described as a "new threshold," during the November 2016 election. She also stated that intelligence agencies will be delivering a full report to lawmakers and others before Obama leaves office.

"The President has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process," Monaco stated, "and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress."

It is unclear if they will be looking into the behaviors, policies and actions of of the DHS in assembling the report.

From the Independent

Barack Obama orders 'full review' into claims election was hacked by Russia

The Senate Intelligence Committee had previously urged the President to declassify information regarding an existing probe into the DNC hacks