2/7/2018

2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/REX TILLERSON/RUSSIA/STATE: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that any Russian interference in November’s midterm elections would ‘invite consequences,’ but suggested the United States is still vulnerable to such meddling… Tillerson said the Trump administration is seeing signs of meddling in European elections, as well as elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, and suggested they could try to interfere in the upcoming US elections as well…
Tillerson told CNN last month he’d seen no specific signs of Russian interference in the midterm elections so far. Asked whether he thought they would meddle, Tillerson said, ‘I don’t know. I hope they don’t.’
His latest interview follows forceful statements by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who recently told the BBC he had ‘every expectation’ Russia would try to meddle in the midterms, but that he was ‘confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great.’… The US government has publicly accused Russia of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations of the Democratic Party in the lead up to the 2016 presidential elections.”

-Laura Koran, “Tillerson warns US is vulnerable to Russian meddling ahead of midterms,” CNN Politcs, CNN.com, Feb. 7, 2018 12:27pm