Category Archives: FBI

Have you Met Capricia Penavic Marshall? You Should….

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Things as noted below as to how people and operations work in Washington DC reminds one of the song from the Thomas Crown Affair, ‘Windmills of Your Mind’: Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever spinning wheel….
Mrs. Marshall is and was quite busy as noted in the collection of emails.
Strategic Partnerships LLC – director

Capricia P. Marshall past relationships:

2008 Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign – senior adviser
Chelsea V. Clinton – guest at 2010 wedding
Hillary Rodham Clinton – special assistant
U.S. Department of State – chief of protocol
White House state dinner (11/24/2009) – invited guest
White House state dinner (3/14/2012) – invited guest
William J. Clinton administration – social secretary

DailyCaller: A hacker believed to be operating on behalf of the Russian government has released thousands of emails taken from the personal account of Capricia Penavic Marshall, a key Clinton world figure who worked under Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

The emails, which were released on the anonymously-operated site DC Leaks, are broken down into eight categories: “Atlantic Council,” “Clinton Foundation,” “Conversations with Clinton’s team,” “favor,” “fundraising,” and several others.

The Daily Caller’s investigative team is scouring through the records.

Marshall’s central importance to the Clintons’ political operations was realized earlier this year by Citizens United. The conservative watchdog group filed a federal lawsuit for Marshall’s State Department emails.

So what? Read on….

Pick for Protocol Post Corrects Failure to File Taxes in 2 Years

NYT’s: President Obama’s choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.

The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant.

Ms. Marshall, who was the social secretary in the Clinton White House, notified the Obama administration about the late filings before she was nominated on May 14. She has since provided written answers to questions about the matter from Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a hearing on the appointment next Wednesday. The post requires Senate confirmation.

Tax issues have bedeviled several high-level Obama appointees and cost the administration at least two of its picks.

Ms. Marshall may fare better because, after ultimately filing the 2005 and 2006 federal and local paperwork, she was entitled to $37,259 in refunds, according to data she provided to Mr. Lugar.

The nominee and her husband, Dr. Robert Marshall, a Washington cardiologist, did not return calls seeking comment, nor did a White House spokesman.

Besides the president’s support, Ms. Marshall appears to enjoy the strong endorsement of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, having worked on their campaigns.

An aide to Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, said, “In the end, only two American taxpayers were adversely impacted by this inadvertent lapse.”

The couple learned something was awry, Ms. Marshall has said, when the Internal Revenue Service notified them last fall that their 2006 return had never arrived. She wrote that an agent “advised us that there were a large number of tax returns misplaced by the D.C. post office for the 2006 tax year.”

That call led the couple to the discovery that the authorities had no record of their returns for 2005 and 2006. No late fees or penalties were assessed when they later submitted the returns.

The protocol chief customarily helps plan events for visiting leaders and helps oversee protocol matters for the president and vice president abroad.

The last few items:

In 2000, as the Clinton Administration wound down, Marshall worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successful New York Senate campaign, although in its aftermath her name figured in charges of campaign finance violations brought before the Federal Election Commission. In 2005, those charges resulted in a criminal trial for Clinton supporter David Rosen, at which Marshall testified. Rosen was acquitted.
In 2001, Marshall began working as a consultant to a number of nonprofit and private sector organizations, including two left-leaning media projects. In 2004, Marshall organized a Washington, DC, screening of director Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, and in 2005 she consulted on the short-lived ABC drama series “Commander in Chief,” which starred Geena Davis as the first female President. In 2006, Marshall signed on to be finance director for Clinton’s re-election committee, Friends of Hillary (FOH), and raised money for Clinton’s HiLLPAC. In 2007, Marshall joined Clinton’s presidential campaign as a senior advisor, leading the Surrogate Speakers Program and helping to coordinate women’s outreach. In 2008, in the wake of Clinton’s loss of the primary race to Barack Obama, Marshall became Executive Director of HiLLPAC and Friends of Hillary and oversaw the closure of both committees. More here.

 

 

Hillary Delivered her Emails in Boxes to State, but Some are Missing

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   Congress Contempt Order for Clinton IT tech, Brian Pagliano

FBI 302 Interview Summary documents

FBI files reveal missing email ‘boxes’ in Clinton case, allegations of evidence tampering

FNC: Buried in the 189 pages of heavily redacted FBI witness interviews from the Hillary Clinton email investigation are details of yet another mystery — about two missing “bankers boxes” filled with the former secretary of state’s emails.

The interviews released earlier this month, known as 302s, also reveal the serious allegation that senior State Department official Patrick Kennedy applied pressure to subordinates to change the classified email codes so they would be shielded from Congress and the public.

The details about the boxes are contained in five pages of the FBI file – with a staggering 111 redactions – that summarize the statements of a State Department witness who worked in the “Office of Information Programs and Services (IPS).” The employee told the FBI that, “Initially, IPS officials were told there were 14 bankers boxes of former Secretary of State Hillary CLINTON’s emails at CLINTON’s Friendship Heights office.” Friendship Heights is a neighborhood that straddles the Northwest neighborhood of the District of Columbia and Maryland.

The State Department witness further explained to the FBI that “on or about December 5, 2014, IPS personnel picked up only 12 bankers boxes of CLINTON’s emails from Williams & Connolly.”

The officials were not sure if the boxes “were consolidated or what could have happened to the two other boxes. “

Clinton’s chief lawyer at Williams & Connolly, who leads all Clinton-related legal matters, is David Kendall. He has successfully represented Bill and Hillary Clinton together and separately throughout decades of their legal entanglements since the 1980’s, ranging from the former president’s sex scandals to missing billing records for Hillary Clinton’s work on behalf of the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan and Capital Management Services.

In the documents provided by Kendall’s law firm, the witness told the FBI they were “unable to locate any of her emails from January-April 2009.” This timeframe is crucial as it covers the start of Clinton’s term as secretary of state and when she set up a private server for all government business, in turn skirting public records laws.

In the same interview, on page 42, the State Department witness also told the FBI there was a deliberate effort to change sensitive Clinton emails bearing the “B(1)” code — used in the Freedom of Information Act review process to identify classified information — to the category of “B-5.” That category covers Executive Branch deliberations, “interagency or intra-agency communications including attorney client privileges,” and makes material exempt from public release.

Over five pages of the single-spaced summary notes, the witness, whose name is redacted, alleges Clinton’s team which included Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy played classification games to confuse and obfuscate the formal FOIA review process.

“(Redacted) believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process. Specifically, STATE’s Near East Affairs Bureau upgraded several of CLINTON’s emails to a classified level with a B(1) release exemption. (Redacted) along with (redacted) attorney, Office of Legal Counsel called STATE’s Near East Affairs Bureau and told them they could use a B(5) exemption on an upgraded email to protect it instead of the B(1) exemption.”

In early May 2015, the witness reported, “… KENNEDY held a closed-door meeting with (redacted) and (redacted) DOJ’s Office of Information Programs where KENNEDY pointedly asked (redacted) to change the FBI’s classification determination regarding one of CLINTON’s emails, which the FBI considered classified. The email was related to FBI counter-terrorism operations.”

This appears to be one of two emails that kick-started the FBI probe in the summer of 2015. Fox News first identified the two emails containing classified information as well as sensitive law enforcement information sent by Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan to Clinton’s unsecured server.

State Department spokesman John Kirby consistently has stated the majority of the 2,100 Clinton server emails containing classified information were “retroactively classified” and not classified at the time they were sent and received. But that explanation is disputed by seasoned intelligence officials. Even the State Department witness cast doubt on the claim in the FBI interview:

“(Redacted) heard the argument that some of CLINTON’S emails were unclassified back in the 2009-2012 timeframe when they were initiated, but were later classified due to various circumstances. It was very rare for something that was actually unclassified to become classified years after the fact.”

Asked this week about the FBI 302 and the claims Kennedy, one of the department’s most senior executives, tampered with the FOIA review process, State Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau said they “strongly refute those claims.”

She added, “The department has complete confidence that the … attorneys performed the highest professional and ethical standards, including, with connection, with the review and release of Secretary Clinton’s emails.”

Kennedy, in his FBI interview on Dec. 21, 2015, “categorically rejected” the allegations of classified code tampering. While the section is partially redacted, it appears the FBI asked Kennedy about the credibility of the accusing witness. He said she “says it like it is” and has “no fear of telling truth to power.”

The conflicting statements indicate either the junior State Department employee or Kennedy misled or lied to federal agents which can be a criminal offense.

Fox News first reported on the intelligence community’s deep concerns that the process was tampered with, as lawyers with Clinton ties were alleged to be involved at the State Department.

Fox News was told in August 2015 that Kennedy was running interference on Capitol Hill. Two sources confirmed that Kennedy went to Capitol Hill and argued one of the emails that kick-started the probe did not contain classified material, citing a 2011 Irish Times newspaper report to claim the information was already public.

According to congressional testimony, at least one of the lawyers in the office where the changes were made is Catherine “Kate” Duval, who was at the IRS during the Lois Lerner email scandal and later handled the release of documents to the Benghazi congressional committee.

Duval once worked for the same firm as Kendall and has since left the State Department.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine “Fox Files” and later, “War Stories.”

**** Yes there is more: 

State Department hands over 200 pages of Clinton Foundation emails

Examiner: Roughly 200 pages of emails sent between Hillary Clinton’s State Department staff and employees of the Clinton Foundation suggest the two teams worked closely on interests that blurred the lines between Clinton’s political and diplomatic pursuits.

Some of the emails, which were made public Wednesday after the State Department provided them to conservative-leaning Citizens United through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, were copies of those made public earlier this year through separate cases.

But others offered new insight into the connections between Clinton’s agency, her family’s foundation and a controversial consulting firm called Teneo Strategies that was founded by Clinton allies.

One Teneo founder, Doug Band, is also a foundation alum. Band appears frequently in the latest batch of records.

For example, when Janice Enright, a powerful lobbyist, sought a State Department audience for a client in March 2010, she went to Band with the request.

“Oh come on,” she wrote to Band when he expressed doubts that the meeting would happen. “[Y]ou can make this happen.”

Band said the problem was that Enright’s client, whose identity was unclear, was not properly vetted.

Other emails suggest Clinton’s team coordinated with foundation officials and a Democratic donor to create a new, Ireland-focused charity called “Friends of the Clinton Centre” at the behest of Clinton.

Some of those conversations had been made public previously, but the extent of coordination over the proposed group was not known.

Anything else? Yes, of course:

McClatchy/WASHINGTON – Just because the FBI closed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails doesn’t mean the issue is over.

On Wednesday, several Republican chairmen of congressional committees sent a letter to the Department of Justice requesting information about restrictions the FBI had when investigating Clinton’s private email server.

The request comes after news reports that the FBI was required to destroy laptops after reviewing them as part of immunity deals for Clinton’s aides. It was signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California.

The letter was sent the same day that the conservative group Citizens United released a new batch of emails that show the close relationship between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation. It obtained them through a lawsuit filed against the State Department after its Freedom of Information Act request went unanswered.

Other emails released in recent weeks by Citizens United and other groups looking to hurt Clinton in her presidential race against Donald Trump show that top aides were in regular contact with foundation officials about donors’ requests, job applicants and talking points for Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, who started the foundation.

The periodic releases are expected to continue through Election Day and into 2018, whether Clinton is elected president or not. Courts have given the State Department time to review and release all the records the lawsuits sought.

Clinton has been criticized for months for exclusively using personal email routed through a private server for government business. The FBI launched an inquiry into the handling of sensitive data after classified information was found in some emails, but the Department of Justice declined to prosecute.

The issue continues to cloud her run for the White House. On Tuesday night, Republican Mike Pence criticized Clinton about the issues in the vice presidential debate against Tim Kaine.

“There’s a reason why people question the trustworthiness of Hillary Clinton,” Pence said. “And that’s because they’re paying attention. I mean, the reality is, when she was secretary of state…come on. She had a Clinton Foundation accepting contributions from foreign governments.”

 

What is the Justice Department Investigating and Prosecuting Anyway?

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A sudden decision to drop the case against Marc Turi, the legitimate arms dealer approved by Hillary to move weapons to Libya, oh…no…then to Qatar and then not at all had his home raided. Why? Good question except Turi Defense was approved not never launched any shipments. The case against him fell apart mostly due to the notion the government would have to produce documents of the case and background for legal discovery and it would have further tainted Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding Qaddafi and her actions in Libya. Hummm okay….what else? All kinds of cases and questions, try a few of these below. Remember too that Obama issued a pardon for Iranians in the United States during the prisoner swap with Iran. Don’t forget those pesky 5 Taliban commanders released for Bowe Bergdahl.

Meanwhile:

Hamas On Campus, and Hamas is a terror organization, since 1997.

 Introduction:

Across America college campuses are being flooded with pro-terrorist propaganda by groups supported by college administrators and student funds. These groups are led by Students for Justice in Palestine but they include the broad coalitions of the left which have become the breeding grounds for a new anti-Semitism. Boycott, Divest and Sanctions resolutions targeting the state of Israel for destruction are passed to chants of “Allahu Ahkbar,” while Jewish students are the targets of verbal and physical harassments which have reached epidemic proportions. This is a report on the 10 schools most supportive of the efforts of Students for Justice in Palestine and its allies, to demonize the state of Israel and bring about its destruction.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) portrays itself as a typical student organization and multicultural group advocating for “social justice” in the Middle East, but this image is a cleverly constructed disguise. Students for Justice in Palestine is not concerned about justice in Palestine where the Hamas regime steals hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for humanitarian aid and uses it to dig terror tunnels whose only purpose is to murder Jews. In truth, SJP is a pro-terror organization that is funded by anti-Israel Hamas terrorists for the purpose of destroying Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and committing genocide against its Jewish population as prescribed in the Hamas charter.

Visit Stop the Jew-Hatred on Campus. 

1. Brooklyn College (CUNY)

2. San Diego State University

3. San Francisco State University

4. Tufts University

5.  University of California Berkeley

6.  University of California Irvine

7.  University of California Los Angeles

8.  University of Chicago

9.  University of Tennessee Knoxville

10. Vassar College

More here from Front Page.

**** Then there is Mosed Omar.

Federal prosecutors — acting abruptly and without public explanation — have moved to drop a controversial criminal passport fraud case that critics alleged stemmed from coercive interrogations at the U.S. embassy in Yemen.

Earlier this year, a grand jury in San Francisco indicted Mosed Omar on passport fraud charges linked to a statement he signed during a 2012 visit to the U.S. diplomatic post in the unstable Middle Eastern nation.

After signing the statement saying he’d used a false name when he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1978, Omar’s U.S. passport was confiscated and a request for a passport for his daughter was denied. Omar eventually made it back to the U.S. on a temporary travel permit. More here from Politico.

There was the case of Huma Abedin not only working officially at the State Department for Hillary Clinton, but at the same time she was on the payroll of Teneo. Has this investigation and case advanced in any form? Not so much.

It seems that double dipping, meaning working for the Federal government and other outside organizations is actually quite common and this too includes staffers working for legislators in both houses of Congress. So, this does tell us there is nepotism perhaps and for sure conflicts of interest. How so you ask? Words matter and members of Congress figured out that the word ‘fellowship’ is best used to describe the work…..sheesh….

POGO: The U.S. Congress allows Members to staff their offices with Fellows who are paid by corporations, foundations, universities, non-profits, and other outside private entities.

The Fellows are required to abide by all the laws, rules, and standards governing permanent Congressional staff members. Indeed, they are often indistinguishable from permanent staff members. They work on writing legislation and Floor speeches, and represent the Member in meetings with other offices and constituents.

POGO reviewed 2,014 publicly available reports on Senate fellows and found several examples of the appearance of a conflict of interest, and that Senators did not consistently disclose fellows whose salary was paid by a third party. The House does not maintain records on Congressional Fellows at all.

On the Senate side, fellows and their supervisors are required to file reports detailing when they began their fellowship, how much money they’re making, what entity is paying their salary, and how many hours they’ve worked. Senate rules mandate that new fellows file their “Agreement to Comply with the Senate Code of Official Conduct,” known as form 41.4, at the beginning of their fellowship, at the end of each calendar quarter, and at the end of the fellowship. The fellow’s supervisor must file a “Report on Individuals Who Perform Senate Services,” known as form 41.6, which is often signed by the Senator. While these forms are available to the public, they are not electronically available and anyone interested in seeing them must visit the Senate Office of Public Records during business hours.

Is there a code of conduct, formal disclosures and rules that apply here? Yes….is there compliance? Not so much. Essentially, this is but another means to lobby members of Congress and to ensure earmarks are designated, and they are.

Require disclosure in the House of Representatives

The House Rules committee should introduce language into the Code of Official Conduct that would require Representatives to report when their office employs an individual who is compensated by any source outside of the United States Government. Such a report should include the identity of the source of the compensation and the amount or rate of compensation.

More oversight in the Senate

Senate reporting of Fellows who are paid by corporations, foundations, universities, non-profits, and other outside private entities is falling short.  The Senate Ethics Committee needs to increase its oversight over the Congressional Fellows reporting requirements, actively checking with Member offices to make sure they don’t have any Fellows employed for years they don’t report any. The Senate Ethics Committee should also increase training for Member offices on what they are required to report, at the start of each Congress it should hold a series of trainings for all Member offices.

Both Chambers should require electronic filing of these disclosures, in a publically accessible format

The Senate, and House as it begins to require reporting on Fellows, should transition to an electronic filing system that can be accessed by the public. This will allow for more uniform participation by Member offices and more public oversight over the Congressional Fellowship programs. Read on here for further and exact details from POGO. Fabulous investigative work and causes for more questions to be asked and solutions to be applied.

 

 

 

We Cant Find 44 Afghani Military Members in USA, AWOL

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From last month: The missing soldiers were identified as Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Cpt. Mohammad Nasir Askarzada, and Cpt. Noorullah Aminyar.Earlier, two Afghan policemen identified as 22-year-old Mohammad Yasin Ataye and 24-year-old Mohd Naweed Samimi vanished during a training visit in United States last week.The two were among the 31 Afghan police officers who are on a visit in United States to work with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

 

**** Some have been missing for as long as 2 years…note missing….in 2 years they have not been located…..sigh

Exclusive: Dozens of Afghan troops AWOL from military training in U.S.

Reuters: Forty-four Afghan troops visiting the United States for military training have gone missing in less than two years, presumably in an effort to live and work illegally in America, Pentagon officials said.

Although the number of disappearances is relatively small — some 2,200 Afghan troops have received military training in the United States since 2007 — the incidents raise questions about security and screening procedures for the programs.

They are also potentially embarrassing for U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, which has spent billions of dollars training Afghan troops as Washington seeks to extricate itself from the costly, 15-year-old war. The disclosure could fuel criticism by supporters of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has accused the Obama administration of failing to properly vet immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and has pledged a much tougher stance if he wins.

While other foreign troops on U.S. military training visits have sometimes run away, a U.S. defense official said that the frequency of Afghan troops going missing was concerning and “out of the ordinary.”

Since September alone, eight Afghan troops have left military bases without authorization, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told Reuters. He said the total number of Afghan troops who have gone missing since January 2015 is 44, a number that has not previously been disclosed.

“The Defense Department is assessing ways to strengthen eligibility criteria for training in ways that will reduce the likelihood of an individual Afghan willingly absconding from training in the U.S. and going AWOL (absent without leave),” Stump said.

Afghans in the U.S. training program are vetted to ensure they have not participated in human rights abuses and are not affiliated with militant groups before being allowed into the United States, Stump said.

The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added there was no evidence any of those who had absconded had carried out crimes or posed a threat to the United States.

Go here for the photo collection by Reuters

The Afghan army has occasionally been infiltrated by Taliban militants who have carried out attacks on Afghan and U.S. troops, but such incidents have become less frequent due to tougher security measures.

Trump, whose other signature immigration plan is to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims seeking to enter the country, and has said that law enforcement officers should engage in more racial profiling to curb the threat of attacks on American soil.

After Omar Mateen, whose father was born in Afghanistan, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June, Trump said an immigration ban would last until “we are in a position to properly screen these people coming into our country.”

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TRAINING

Washington has allocated more than $60 billion since 2002 to train and equip Afghan troops, but security remains precarious and the Taliban are estimated to control more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since 2001 when the U.S. invaded.

Earlier this year Obama shelved plans to cut the U.S. force in Afghanistan nearly in half by year’s end, opting instead to keep 8,400 troops there through the end of his presidency in January.

The military training program brings troops to the United States from around the world in order to build on military relations and improve capabilities for joint operations.

In some cases, officials said, the Afghan students who went missing were in the United States for elite Army Ranger School and intelligence-gathering training. The officials did not identify the missing troops or their rank.

Even though the troops were in the United States for military training, they were not necessarily always on a military base.

If students under the military program are absent from training for more than 24 hours, they are considered to be “absent without leave” (AWOL) and the Department of Homeland Security is notified.

In one case the Pentagon confirmed that an Afghan student had been detained by Canadian police while attempting to enter Canada from the United States.

It was unclear how many others have been located by U.S. authorities, and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Experts said low morale and insufficient training to fight the Taliban could explain the troops leaving, in addition to a dearth of economic opportunities in the impoverished country.

“They face a formidable enemy, with very limited resources and many Afghan troops aren’t getting paid on time,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank.

DHS Officially Issues Alert on Election Hacking

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Related reading: Hacking an election is about influence and disruption, not voting machines

DHS Issues Alert on U.S. Election Hacking

The United States Department of Homeland Security has issued an Intelligence Assessment on the Cyber Threats and Vulnerabilities to U.S. Election Infrastructure. The report, which primarily downplays the risk of hacking election systems appears to conflict with recent FBI Director testimony stating that at least 20 states have been electronically probed with four suffering hacking related intrusions. The report does note that “multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to US computer-enabled election systems varies from county to county, between types of devices used, and among processes used by polling stations.”

The key judgments also include:

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaign, and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target personally identifiable information (PII), such as that available in voter registration databases. We have no indication, however, that criminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter US computer-enabled election infrastructure.

Other elements of the report, note the resiliency of the voting infrastructure, but also the potential for nation-state disruption.

No Indication of Cyber Operations to Change Vote Outcome

  • DHS has no indication that adversaries or criminals are planning cyber operations against US election infrastructure that would change the outcome of the coming US election. Multiple checks and redundancies in US election infrastructure—including diversity of systems, non-Internet connected voting machines, pre-election testing, and processes for media, campaigns and election officials to check, audit, and validate results—make it likely that cyber manipulation of US election systems intended to change the outcome of a national election would be detected.
  • We assess that successfully mounting widespread cyber operations against US voting machines, enough to affect a national election, would require a multiyear effort with significant human and information technology resources available only to a nation-state. The level of effort and scale required to change the outcome of a national election, however, would make it nearly impossible to avoid detection. This assessment is based on the diversity of systems, the need for physical access to compromise voting machines, and the security and pre-election testing employed by state and local officials.* In addition, the vast majority of localities engage in logic and accuracy testing, which work to ensure voting machines operate and tabulate as expected—before, during, and after the election.
  • We judge, as a whole, voter registration databases are resilient to systemic, nationwide cyber manipulation because of the diverse systems and security measures surrounding them. Targeted intrusions against individual voter registration databases, however, are possible. Additionally, with illicit access, manipulation of voter data, or disruptions to their availability, may impact a voter’s ability to vote on Election Day. Most jurisdictions, however, still rely on paper voter rolls or electronic poll books that are not connected in real-time to voter registration databases, limiting the possible impacts in 2016.
  • Voting precincts in more than 3,100 counties across the United States use nearly 50 different types of voting machines produced by 14 different manufacturers. The diversity in voting systems and versions of voting software provides significant security by complicating attack planning. Most voting machines do not have active connections to the Internet.
  • We assess the impact of an intrusion into vote tabulation systems would likely be contained to the manipulation of unofficial Election Night reporting results, which would not impact the certified outcome of an election, but could undermine public confidence in the results. In addition, local election officials, media organizations, and political campaigns carefully monitor local voting patterns, particularly in electorally significant jurisdictions, and are likely to detect and begin investigating potential anomalies quickly.

Non-State Actors Likely To Continue Targeting PII, Potentially Attempt Disruption

  • We judge cybercriminals and criminal hackers are likely to continue to target voter PII. We have no indication, however, that cybercriminals are planning theft of voter information to disrupt or alter computer-enabled US election infrastructure voting. Politically-motivated criminal hackers could attempt temporary disruptive cyber attacks, such as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or web defacements against election-related websites, in the lead-up to or during the election process. Disruptive attacks could target public-facing state and local government websites, potentially including election infrastructure used to report election results to the general public and media; however, we judge this activity would likely have little impact on the voting process itself.
  • Unknown cyber actors in mid-July used an open-source scanning tool to identify and exploit a structured query language (SQL) injection vulnerability and exfiltrate PII from a Midwestern state board of elections website, according to FBI sources with excellent access and information provided by a cybersecurity organization supporting states. In at least three other states, voting and non-voting related websites during the same period observed unsuccessful SQL injection attacks from unknown actors, according to the same reporting.
  • Cybercriminals routinely attempt exploitation of misconfigured and vulnerable websites and webservers via SQL injection, brute force login attempts, cross-site scripting, and other publicly known vulnerabilities, according to DHS reporting from sources with direct access.
  • Criminal hackers routinely engage in disruptive attacks such as website defacement and DoS attacks, through exploiting publicly known vulnerabilities and for-hire DoS tools, according to DHS reporting from reliable sources with direct access.

Vulnerability of Computer-Enabled Election Systems

  • We assess multiple elements of US election infrastructure are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusions. The risk to computer-enabled election systems, however, varies from county to county, between types of devices used and among processes used by polling stations.
  • Electronic Voting Systems: Security researchers have repeatedly demonstrated in laboratory testing environments that voting machines are vulnerable to compromise, usually with physical access, and such compromises could result in the manipulation of vote totals. Election outcomes would only be impacted if the compromise happened on a large scale across multiple machines or jurisdictions—which we judge to be beyond the capability of any adversary—or in cases of smaller local elections where the margin of victory is at a smaller scale.
  • Voter Registration Databases: Online voter registration systems provide a potential point of vulnerability to enable cyber actors to gain illicit access to voter registration databases. Cyber actors have exploited these portals in the past to gain illicit access to voter information. Compromises of voter registration databases have resulted in the potential release of PII, but not the modification of records—with the exception of one unconfirmed incident of voter registration manipulation reported by US media. The exposure of voters’ information would have limited impact on the integrity of the election process; however, it could undermine confidence in the system and provide the ability to conduct further cyber operations.
  • Public Dissemination of Voting Results: State government information technology solutions generally include a public-facing Internet-connected portion that is used to report election results to the general public and media, which some states have begun migrating to the cloud due to Election Day demand. Vulnerabilities in the public-facing Internet portion could be used to display inaccurate vote results to the public and media. Election Day results are not the official results of the state or local jurisdiction.

election-hacking