3/6/2018

2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump said Tuesday [3-6-18] that Russia had ‘no impact on our votes’ in the 2016 presidential contest but vowed to combat any attempts to meddle in the 2018 midterms.
It was Trump’s most forceful attempt to date at dissuading Russia from continuing its election interference efforts, though he again suggested that other countries may have been involved and continued to insist the final results were not affected by Moscow… The President said it was important to guard against meddling efforts during the midterm contests…
The President has consistently shrugged off intelligence assessments that Moscow attempted to sway the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. He’s called the investigation into the interference, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a ‘hoax.’ And he’s said he takes Russian President Vladimir Putin at his word when he denies having ordered the meddling campaign…
This week, it was revealed the US State Department has yet to use tens of millions of dollars in funding that lawmakers allocated to counter Russian misinformation and propaganda, even as intelligence chiefs have warned that Russia is actively targeting the 2018 midterm elections.
But on Tuesday, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said there are ongoing conversations between Trump and appropriate US agencies about how to counter the threat of Russian attacks on the midterm elections.”

-Kevin Liptak, “Trump says Russia had ‘no impact’ on 2016 election votes,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Mar. 6, 2018 06:04pm