COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
(U) After the election, Secretary Johnson decided the time had come to make the designation. He held a follow-up call with NASS on the critical infrastructure designation in January 2017: "I didn't tell them I'm doing this the next day, but I told them I was close to making a decision. I didn't hear anything further [along the lines of additional, articulated objections], so the same day we went public with the [unclassified] version of the report,[1] I also made the designation."[2]
(U) Mr. Daniel summed up the rationale for proceeding this way: "I do believe that we should think of the electoral infrastructure as critical infrastructure, and to me it's just as critical for democracy as communications, electricity, water. If that doesn't function, then your democracy doesn't function. … To me that is the definition of critical."[3]
(U) In interviews with the Committee in late 2017 and early 2018, several states were supportive of the designation and saw the benefits of, for example, the creation of the Government Coordinating Council. Others were lukewarm, saying they had seen limited benefits for all the consternation officials said it had caused. Still others remained suspicious that the designation is a first step toward a federal takeover of elections.- B. (U) The View From the States
(U) For most states, the story of Russian attempts to hack slate infrastructure was one of confusion and a lack of information. It began with what states interpreted as an insignificant event: an FBI FLASH notification on August 18, 2016, [4] Then, mid-October, the MS-ISAC reached out to state IT directors with an additional alert about specific IP addresses scanning websites.[5] At no time did MS-ISAC or DHS identify the IP addresses as associated with a nation-state actor. Given the lack of context, state staff who received the notification did not ascribe any additional urgency to the warning; to them, it was a few more suspect IP addresses among the thousands that were constantly pinging state systems. Very few state IT directors informed state election officials about the alert.
- ↑ (U) Secretary Johnson was referring to the declassified version of the Intelligence Community Assessment, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, January 6, 2017.
- ↑ (U) Ibid., p. 46.
- ↑ (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. 98.
- ↑ (U) FBI FLASH, Alert Number T-LD1004-TT, TLP-AMBER,
- ↑ (U ) FBI FLASH, Alert Number T-LD1005-TT, TLP-AMBER, ; DHS/FBI JAR-16-20223, Threats to Federal, State, and Local Government Systems, October 14, 2016.
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COMMITTEE SENSITIVE—RUSSIA INVESTIGATION ONLY
