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| Senate Intelligence Committee |
It is nothing of the kind. While the House Intelligence Committee degenerated into partisan bickering between Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes, the Senate Intelligence Committee worked together in a remarkable serious, bipartisan fashion to investigate Russian interference and left no doubt that the interference was real. As for any cooperation between Trump and Russia, the report raised more questions than it answered -- but some of the questions were quite disturbing.
The Committee released its report(s) in five volumes over a year's time. The fifth and final volume, dealing with contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians, is by far the largest (more than all the other volumes combined)* and has attracted by far the most attention. But the other volumes amply establish Russian interference and deserve at least some attention.
Interestingly enough, no volume deals with the details of the hacks and the transfer of information to Wikileaks, although there is some discussion of the subject in Volume V. Perhaps the Committee thought that the Mueller investigation had the final word on the subject, both in its indictment and its final report.
But the Senate Intelligence Committee does comment on other aspects of Russian interference. Volume I addresses Russian attacks on state election infrastructure. Volume I is too technical to hold the interest of your average person, but it does include some notable comments.
First, it does not identify any states, except for Illinois, which appears to be the first state to realize it was targeted. The other states investigated are simply identified as State 1 through State 22. (Presumably the Committee did not want to reveal details of specific states' weaknesses). Sorting through redacted sections, technical discussion, minutia, and hypotheticals, a few things do stand out.
First, whenever the intruder was identified, it was determined to be the GRU, a/k/a Russian Military Intelligence, a/k/a Fancy Bear. The report does not detail a single attack by the SVR a/k/a Russian Civilian Intelligence, a/k/a Cozy Bear. This is significant because, although Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear (a/k/a GRU) both hacked the DNC servers, Cozy Bear limited itself to intelligence gathering. All election interference was the work of Fancy Bear. Although Cozy Bear got there first, it never released any of the hacked material. Fancy Bear began to do so in quite a short period of time.
Second, although the hacks were the work of the same agency that engaged in election interference, none of the state-level hacks made any attempt to interfere in elections. The hacks were not directed toward vote counting, but rather toward voter registration and voter lists (p. 22). The first known hack took place in June, 2016 in Illinois and successfully breached the voter registration database. "Russian cyber actors were in a position to delete or change voter data, but the Committee is not aware of any evidence that they did so." (p. 22). The report discussed at some length things that Russian Intelligence could have done with voter registration data to disrupt the election, but notes that none were done.
Speculating on Russian motives, the Committee says:
Russian intentions regarding U.S. election infrastructure remain unclear. Russia might have intended to exploit vulnerabilities in election infrastructure during the 2016 elections and, for unknown reasons, decided not to execute those options. Alternatively, Russia might have sought to gather information in the conduct of traditional espionage activities. Lastly, Russia might have used its activity in 2016 to catalog options or clandestine actions, holding them for use at a later date. Based on what the IC knows about Russia's operating procedures and intentions more broadly, the IC assesses that Russia's activities against U.S. election infrastructure likely sought to further their overarching goal; undermining the integrity of elections and American confidence in democracy.
(p. 35)
Third, there was serious distrust and friction between the federal Department of Homeland Security and state-level voting agencies. State agencies tended to resent federal "interference" and see it as an attempt at a federal takeover. States often received incomplete information, sometimes no more than certain IP addresses to look out for, among thousands pinging them. Many did not learn they were targeted by Russians until after the election was over. DHS often communicated with state officials responsible for cyber security, but not with election officials. And DHS officials knew very little about how state elections worked. Some were just reading spreadsheets they had been given. (pp. 49-51).
Nonetheless, Volume I also reported that cooperation between DHS election officials was improving. Hence the boast by Chris Krebs, head of cyber security for DHS that the 2020 elections were the most secure ever and DHS Undersecretary Ken Cuccinellis attempt to qualify that remark by saying that it referred to cyber security only.
All of which leads to the final and most obvious point. Volume I emphasizes the potential vulnerabilities of the US election system and the various ways it might be attached through cyber hacking. All of this becomes highly significant in the 2020 election, when various Trump supporters alleged all manner of vulnerabilities real and imagined. One wonders if any of them had read this report. Looking at the reports through the perspective of the 2020 election serves as a painful reminder of the adage that generals always start by fighting the last war -- and find out just how much has changed.
*To be specific:
Volume I, Russian attacks on election infrastructure, 67 pages
Volume II, Russian use of social media, 85 pages.
Volume III, US government response, 54 pages
Volume IV, intelligence community assessment, 158 pages
Volume V, counterintelligence, with a focus on the Trump campaign, 966 pages.
Wow!
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