The White House on Thursday declared that a “vast government-wide effort” was underway to stop foreign powers meddling in upcoming midterm elections in the US, reassuring voters and rebutting recent criticism.
The most senior figures in America’s intelligence and national security agencies made a succession of speeches from the White House press briefing podium accusing Russia of continuing to pursue a “pervasive” campaign to "weaken and divide the United States”.
Ahead of November’s midterms, they warned that American democracy was in the “crosshairs” of foreign adversaries and that on-going action was needed to protect the country’s “free and fair” elections.
And they said that while current Russian interference was not as sizable as that seen before the 2016 presidential election, it was only "one keyboard click away” from escalating.
The comments came alongside a letter from John Bolton, the White House national security adviser, to Democrat senators outlining what was being done by the government.
The intervention appeared designed to both reassure the public they could have confidence when they head to the ballot box in a few months’ time and counter criticism that the Trump administration is not being proactive enough to protect the election process.
Last month Donald Trump, the US president, failed to say that the Kremlin was behind the 2016 election interference during a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki.
The stance directly clashed with his own intelligence agencies’ assessment and triggered a wave of criticism. Mr Trump later walked back the remarks, saying he meant to say there was no reason Russia “would not” be behind the attacks rather than “would”.
Mr Bolton said in his letter published by the White House: “President Trump has not and will not tolerate interference in America’s system of representative government.
“He has directed a vast, government-wide effort to protect electoral procedures and processes while investigating, prosecuting, and holding accountable those who illegally attempt to interfere.”
Dan Coats, director of national intelligence – America’s most senior intelligence official – said that Mr Trump had “specifically” tasked agencies to make stopping election meddling a “top priority”.
He warned: "We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.”
Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said the agency was working with “fierce determination and focus” to counter the threat, which he warned was “not going away”.
Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security, said that “free and fair elections” were the “cornerstone” of America’s political system, adding: “Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs”.
In America, elections are administered by states and local bodies, while the central government takes on a supporting role.
Some of the efforts going on to increase resilience to foreign meddling were outlined on Thursday.
Cyber security advice is being given to ensure that online databases of voter details are as protected as possible.
Election officials are also being trained up to learn best practices and spot suspicious activity.
The threat of election meddling was broadly split into two categories – spreading disinformation to influence voters and direct attempts to hack into parts of the election machinery, such as voter databases.
Officials said that they are seeing more of the former than the latter in the run-up to the November mid-terms. They also stressed that the 2020 presidential election could be vulnerable to meddling.
During the briefing, Mr Wray, the FBI director, brushed off criticism of his department from Mr Trump, saying he could reassure Americans that agents would continue to “do our jobs”.
Officials also declined to explain why Mr Trump had failed to make clear he blamed Russia for the 2016 election meddling when standing alongside Mr Putin at the Helsinki summit.
Instead they simply said that the president believes Russia was to blame for the interference.