Marsha Blackburn is compromised.
Marsha Blackburn blocks bills that would ensure foreign countries can't interfere with American elections
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is behind an effort to block bills that could ensure US elections are more secure, Axios reported Monday.
The bills were Sen. Mark Warner's (D-VA) plan to ensure that after the Russian interference in the 2016 election, a foreign country could never do it again. According to Blackburn, however, they're a "federal power grab."
One of the bills would make campaigns call the FBI if they were ever approached by a foreign power and offered election assistance. During the 2016 election, Trump's campaign was offered "dirt" on opponent Hillary Clinton, and operatives met with the person offering the information in Trump Tower.
A different bill would fund the Election Assistance Commission, which would ensure that voting machines weren't connected to the internet. Republicans claimed after the 2020 election that the machines were being hacked and that was how foreign countries were able to decide U.S. elections.
The Senate Intelligence Committee released the third section of their report on the security of the election in 2016 and noted that it was "not well-postured" to counter it again. At the same time, the intelligence community has been warning that there aren't the necessary protections in place to ensure American elections are as secure as they could be. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress that Russia continues its "informational warfare" campaign as the midterm elections approach.
Most state and local election offices don't have the staff or resources available to protect against international hackers or foreign spies.
Read More Here: https://www.axios.com/2020/02/11/gop-senator-election-security-blocksDetails in latest DOJ filing could 'drive Trump to be even more worried’: legal expertOn Monday, former solicitor general Neal Katyal took to Twitter to analyze the significance of the Justice Department's unwillingness to release the unredacted affidavit that helped them secure the search warrant for President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
One of the key points in the document, Katyal argued, will give Trump further cause for alarm.
"DOJ is appropriately resisting disclosure of the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit because it will compromise their ongoing investigation. This is very standard and right," wrote Katyal. "That said, what they said — especially about witnesses — will invariably drive Trump to be even more worried."
In the DOJ's filing, officials stated that the affidavit would require so many redactions as to be of little practical use to the public.
"Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would ... cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation," said the filing. "As the Court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts: highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept under seal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)."
This also comes as Trump and his allies reportedly are searching for a "mole" within Mar-a-Lago who may have worked with the FBI to give them information about where and what classified information might have been stashed on the former president's property.
Read More Here: https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1559280821424586755John Brennan outlines just how damaging to national security Trump's classified documents scandal isThere were two Chinese people arrested at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago's club, raising questions about possible efforts of foreign countries attempting to spy on the then president. Speaking to MSNBC, John Brennan noted that it begs the question about the security of the documents that were at Mar-a-Lago and it could have been a reason that the DOJ wanted to act quickly to take the classified information back.
"It certainly seems as though the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland have been careful in terms of how they've gone about trying to retrieve these documents that should not be in the possession of Donald Trump," said Brennan. "As your chronology indicates there has been back and forth between the folks in the Trump orbit and the Department of Justice [and] National Archives, but it's clear that over the course of 20 months these very sensitive documents, seven sets of classified documents as well as other sets of documents or material that shouldn't be in his private possession down in Mar-a-Lago that these documents are something that I think were intentionally withheld from the government."
He said it isn't likely a bunch of classified information was mixed in with to-go menus or coupons.
"But there seems to be some type of effort and not just for Donald Trump and others to try to conceal the fact that he was retaining these documents," said Brennan. "And so when I look at the labels that the Department of Justice said were on these documents, top secret, SCI, secret documents and others, it's really quite concerning because who knows who might have had access to these documents over the course of these last 20 months?"
He explained that's why the DOJ would have rushed in after only two months of negotiation with Trump, because the first objective was to regain possession of them so there would not be any further damage caused. And now since there were calls for damage assessment Avril Haines and others will have to look carefully at how damaging this information might be to our national security interest given that it was unsecured and it was illegally retained for this length of time."
He went on to say that whether or not there was nuclear information in the documents and what could have happened over the past 20 months.
"I do think foreign intelligence services, the Russians and the Chinese, could have easily tried to get people into Mar-a-Lago to gain access to what was an unsecured facility, and the availability of these documents that were kept in the files there," said Brennan.
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