DHS/ELECTION/FBI/INTELLIGENCE/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday [4-26-19] about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a ‘significant counterintelligence threat.’ The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior F.B.I. official. The Trump administration has come to see that Russia’s influence operations have morphed into a persistent threat. The F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference, senior American national security officials said…Mr. Wray’s warnings came after the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, laid out in hundreds of pages of detail the interference and influence campaign carried out by Russian operatives in the 2016 election. While American officials have promised to continue to try to counter, block and weaken the Russian intelligence operations, they have complained of a lack of high-level coordination. President Trump has little interest or patience for hearing about such warnings, officials have said.”
–Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman, “F.B.I. Warns of Russian Interference in 2020 Race and Boosts Counterintelligence Operations,” The New York Times online, April 26, 2019