House Democrats are questioning Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s commitment to improving election security after she told reporters Tuesday that she is unfamiliar with a key finding in the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election: that the Kremlin intended to help President Trump win. They surmised she might have been trying to avoid upsetting Trump, who — along with House Republicans — has sought to discredit the idea that Russia favored his candidacy over that of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. (Leah Millis/Reuters)But Democratic members questioned how officials planned to prevent future election interference if they were at odds over what happened in 2016. Though House Intelligence Committee Republicans wrote in a report that the intelligence community had not followed its own best practices when it determined that Russia was trying to help Trump, the Senate Intelligence Committee released interim findings this month that agreed entirely with the intelligence community. Trump championed the House Intelligence Committee Republicans’ argument.

Source: Washington Post May 22, 2018 20:03 UTC