Press Briefing by Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and National Security Officials
I believe our mandate is clear. As part of its mission to defend the nation, the Department of Defense is providing intelligence, information support, and technical expertise to the Department of Homeland Security for use by state and local officials to prevent foreign interference in our elections.
This is a vital mission for us and the nation. It draws on our deep experience and expertise in continuing work on this area. Our support has been ongoing and will continue through the midterm elections. We are also providing intelligence and information leads to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on foreign adversaries who are attempting to sow discord and division within the American public. This information is shared with appropriate entities to alert them to malicious cyber actors.
U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are tracking a wide range of foreign cyber adversaries, and are prepared to conduct operations against those actors attempting to undermine our nation's midterm elections.
These type of operations are sensitive and require confidentiality for success. I won't discuss the specifics, except to state that our forces are well trained, ready, and very capable. I have complete confidence in the forces under my command. We will work in conjunction with other elements of our government to ensure we bring the full power of our nation to bear on any foreign power that attempts to interfere in our democratic processes. I'll turn it back over to the moderator.
SANDERS: Thank you. As I said at the beginning, if we could stay on topic. And also, if you could, when asking a question, direct it to a specific person. And as always, after we finish this part of the briefing, I'll be back to answer other questions on news of the day.
John, go ahead.
Q Thank you, Sarah. Director Coats, if I could direct a question to you?
DIRECTOR COATS: Sure.
Q Let me take you back, if I could, to Helsinki. The President seemed to indicate that he may believe Vladimir Putin, when he says he doesn't - didn't have any influence in the 2016 election. What is your belief about the Russian government involvement in meddling in 2016? And if, as you say, Russia continues to try to influence our electoral process, does that mean that nothing much came of the meeting with Putin? Or is it other-than-government actors who are involved here?
DIRECTOR COATS: Well, in relationship to the 2016 election - of course, none of us were in office at that particular time - but both the President, the Vice President, and I think everyone on this stage has acknowledged the fact that the ICA was a correct assessment of what happened in 2016.
We have subsequently made the determination to make this a top priority, that it doesn't happen again. And we're throwing everything at it. And we will have and will be discussing that here today.
Relative to my discussions with the President on whatever issue it is, those - I do not go public with that. I don't think that's the right - the proper thing to do. So our focus here today is simply to tell the American people: We acknowledge the threat, it is real, it is continuing, and we're doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the American people can have trust in.
In addition to that, it goes beyond the elections. It goes to Russia's intent to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies, and do a number of other nefarious things. And we are looking at that also.
Today we are here to talk about the elections coming up and what we're doing in ensuring the American people we're going to have a legitimate -
Q If I could just clarify, because both you and Director Wray said that Russia continues to try and meddle in our elections -
DIRECTOR COATS: They do.
Q - and influence voters. Are we talking about rogue Russian individuals or are we talking about the Kremlin?
DIRECTOR COATS: I'm thinking you can - both. And even add to that. Russia has used numerous ways in which they want to influence through media - social media, through bots, through actors that they hire through proxies. All of the above and potentially more. I can't go into any deep, deep details on what is classified. But it is pervasive. It is ongoing with the intent to achieve their intent, and that is drive a wedge and undermine our democratic values.
SANDERS: Toluse.
Q Thank you. I have a question for Director Wray. Thank you. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted more than 20 Russian officials based on work by the FBI for meddling in the 2016 elections.
Now the President has tweeted that that investigation by the Special Counsel is a hoax and should be shut down. I know you've said that you don't believe it is a hoax. But why would the American people believe what you're saying about the FBI when the President says that the investigation by the Special Counsel is a hoax, and when the Press Secretary, yesterday, said that there was a lot of corruption within the FBI? Do you have any response to those statements coming from the White House?
DIRECTOR WRAY: Well, I can assure the American people that the men and women of the FBI, starting from the Director all the way on down, are going to follow our oaths and do our jobs.
SANDERS: Saagar.
Q Thank you, Sarah. I have a question for Director Coats. Director Coats, how would you characterize the current efforts - Russian efforts - to meddle in the 2018 election relative to 2016? Is it more intense? Do you see those efforts focused on a particular party? And, in general, is the pace of those operations in any way relative to 2014, 2012? Or is it more intense?
DIRECTOR COATS: Relative to what we have seen for the midterm elections, it is not the kind of robust campaign that we assessed in the 2016 election. We know that, through decades, Russia has tried to use its propaganda and methods to sow discord in America. However, they stepped up their game big time in 2016. We have not seen that kind of robust effort from them so far.
As I mentioned publicly sometime - just a few weeks ago, we're only one keyboard click away from finding out something that we don't - haven't seen up to this particular point in time. But right now, we have not seen that.
Q To follow up sir, do you see it directed to any particular party? In its current 2018 efforts, is there any particular party that is benefitting from current 2018 Russian efforts?
DIRECTOR COATS: What we see is the Russians are looking for every opportunity, regardless of party, regardless of whether or not it applies to the election, to continue their pervasive efforts to undermine our fundamental values.
SANDERS: Jeff. Go ahead.
Q Thank you, Sarah. Also for Director Coats. In the run-up to the -
DIRECTOR COATS: I'm trying to get off here. (Laughter.)
Q - and perhaps Ambassador Bolton could weigh in this as well. But in the run-up to the Helsinki Summit, U.S. officials, ambassadors to NATO, ambassadors to Russia said that the President would raise the issue of malign activity with President Putin. But he didn't discuss that, at least, at the press conference.
You're saying, today, that the President has directed you to make the issue of election meddling a priority. How do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying - his advisors - and what the President has said about this issue?
DIRECTOR COATS: I'm not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at Helsinki. I'll turn it over to the National Security Director, here, to address that question.
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: The issue was discussed. And, in fact, President Putin said - I thought at the press conference, but certainly in the expanded bilateral meeting when the two leaders got together with their senior advisors - President Putin said the first issue that President Trump raised was election meddling.
Q I guess the question is, at the press conference, the President didn't highlight any of the malign activities that you have and that his advisors have. And so, should Americans believe that he is listening to your advice, or that he is going his own way when he's having meetings like he did with the President of Russia?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: I think the President has made it abundantly clear to everybody who has responsibility in this area that he cares deeply about it and that he expects them to do their jobs to their fullest ability and that he supports them fully.
SANDERS: Blake.
Q Thank you, Sarah. I believe this is either for Director Coats or Director Wray. I'll let either of you choose. Since social media was brought up, there is a recent case with Facebook, how they just shut down some 32 accounts believed, potentially, to be from Russia.
Can you give us an idea, is that a large amount? Is that a - just kind of the tip of the iceberg? And then, generally speaking, with these social media companies - Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram - how much have they progressed, or have they not progressed, and what you would like to see in terms of progression from 2016 and identifying the threat?
DIRECTOR WRAY: So first, I'm not going to discuss any specific ongoing investigation. But what I will tell you is that activity of the sort you're describing is a good reflection of the fact that we have to have a public-private partnership in this particular threat. And that's why, when I talked about our three pillars of the FBI's foreign influence taskforce, we're spending so much of our effort trying to engage with the social media and technology companies, because there is a very important role for them to play in terms of monitoring and, in effect, policing their own platforms.
So what we have to have happen, which has started happening in a way that's much more robust - much more robust than in before the 2016 election - we're sharing with them actionable intelligence in a way that wasn't happening before. We understand better what they need; they're sharing information back with us based on what they find. There are things that they can do on their platforms voluntarily, in terms of terms of use and things like that that the government doesn't have a role in.
But, in turn, we learn things from them and we can use that to have our investigations be more effective. So I do thing progress is being made. We got to keep getting better at it. We got to keep staying on the balls of our feet, but I think that's what we're seeing.
SANDERS: Jennifer.
Q Ambassador Bolton, in your letter you talk about ordering the closure of the consulates in San Francisco and Seattle; these are two tech hubs. What happened there that led you to do that?
AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well, I'm not going to discuss the background of that decision, which actually occurred before I came to this job, but the purpose of expelling the Russian individuals that were expelled was to send a signal to Russia that their conduct in conducting a chemical weapons attack in Great Britain was unacceptable. And this was a mode of retaliation designed to show that we will not tolerate that kind of activity on the territory of the United States or any of our allies. And we expelled a lot of the people who we think had knowledge of it or had other activities in the United States that we considered unacceptable.
SANDERS: Mike Shear.
Q This, I guess, would be for maybe Secretary Nielsen or Mr. Wray. These meddling campaigns seem to fall into two broad categories: the, sort of, information campaigns, which challenge the information upon which American use to make their determinations, and then the more physical interferences into the machinery of voting; the tabulation of voting, the voter roles, the machinery that the states run.
Can you guys describe what you're seeing specifically in the run-up to this coming election? In both of those areas, do you worry more about one than the other? Do you have - are there specific threats that maybe you can't even talk about but that you can say there have been specific threats in both of those categories? And how should Americans process that where we're going to go to the polls in a few months? Should people be confident that when they pull the lever, they're secure?
DIRECTOR WRAY: Well, I think we've said this fairly consistently, that in the context of 2018, we are not yet seeing the same kind of efforts to specifically target election infrastructure - voter registration databases, in particular.
What we are seeing are the malign influence operations - in effect, information warfare that we talked about. And that didn't really - that's a 24/7, 365 days-a-year phenomenon that doesn't turn, necessarily, on whether or not we're in the middle of an election season or not.
But, as Director Coats said, any moment is just a moment before, you know, the dial can be turned up one, much as we saw in 2016. Again, not in terms of affecting the vote count, but in terms of potential penetration of voter registration databases or something like that. And that, in turn, can be a vehicle for them to try to sow discord or undermine confidence. And we have to make sure we're pushing back on it, which is what we're doing.
SECRETARY NIELSEN: So just to add, so the way that we're splitting it, we're all partnering together, but your question just shows a little bit of the division of labor. So DHS is focused on the election infrastructure in support of state and locals that have the primary responsibility. And then we support the FBI's efforts in countering foreign influence.
But with respect to the infrastructure piece, we had seen a willingness and a capability on the part of the Russians, and so we are working very closely with state and locals to ensure that we're prepared this time round.
Part of that is encouraging states to have auditability. So to get to that one part of your question, whatever happens, we want to assure Americans the day after that their vote was counted and it was counted correctly.
So regardless of what might happen, we will be prepared, but we also want to make sure we have that audibility.
SANDERS: (Inaudible.)
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