Tag Archive for: trumps

Biden accuses Trump’s defense department and budget office of ‘obstruction’

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  • President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said that his transition team is facing ongoing roadblocks from President Trump’s political leadership at the Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget. 
  • “Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Biden said.
  • Biden over the past week has repeatedly expressed concern about the lack of access he’s received at the Pentagon as the US deals with the SolarWinds hack and amid tensions with Iran. 
  • The Pentagon has pushed back on the claim that officials are stonewalling Biden. 
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

President-elect Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump’s political appointees at both the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget of “obstruction” and refusing to provide key information to his presidential transition team during remarks in Delaware on Monday. 

“We have encountered roadblocks from the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said during prepared remarks after a briefing from his national security advisers. 

“Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” he said. “It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.” 

The Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

“My team needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies,” Biden said. “We need full visibility into the budget planning under way at the defense department and other agencies in order to avoid any window of confusion or catchup that our adversaries may exploit.”

This comes after Biden said last week that the Pentagon has refused to brief his national security team on several key issues, including the massive suspected Russian cyberattack on the US government this year. And Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller ordered his department to cancel meetings with the Biden transition team, Axios reported earlier…

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After government hack, media mum on ex-cybersecurity chief highlighted for contradicting Trump’s fraud claims

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Many in the media wanted to talk to Christopher Krebs, the nation’s former top cybersecurity official, when he disputed President Trump’s unproven allegations of voter fraud.

But his name appears to come up less frequently now that his former agency is being scrutinized in the wake of an apparent Russian cyber attack that began in March but was only publicly revealed this week.

Krebs headed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until Trump fired him in November. He had called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” and said there was no evidence of changed, deleted, lost or otherwise compromised votes.

RUSSIA HACK CLAIMS: WHAT IS THE CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE AGENCY?

He garnered a lot of media coverage for contradicting the president, appearing on a slew of television news programs.

Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies before a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies before a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

“Christopher Krebs defended election integrity. Trump fired him,” read a PBS News Hour headline. He even appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in late November, where he was asked about his dismissal.

But although the former CISA chief was also at the head of the federal government’s cyberdefense operation, tasked with “securing federal networks” and “protecting critical infrastructure,” his name appears to come up less in connection with the breach.

On Tuesday, CNN published an op-ed he authored, in which he addressed election integrity and cybersecurity in general but not the type of hacking that befell the federal government under his watch.

“As I said in a news briefing, Election Day was ‘just another Tuesday on the Internet,’” he wrote. “Normal sorts of scanning and probing were happening, but we did not see any successful attacks or damaging disruptions.”

Yet hackers were arms deep in a slew of federal agencies. The infiltration, believed to have been conducted by the Russians, appears to have compromised the Departments…

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The Cybersecurity 202: Security advocates see a possible silver lining in Trump’s election assaults

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“If there’s one positive piece that comes out of this it would be greater oversight of election vendors,” David Levine, elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, told me. Dominion, along with two other major vendors, control about 80 percent of the U.S. market for election systems. “If there’s a successful cyberattack against one of them, that could have devastating consequences,” he said.

On the other hand, the attacks by Trump and his supporters are basically made up out of whole cloth and contrary to all available evidence. Security pros worry these conspiracy theories that go far beyond any legitimate concerns will corrode public faith in elections and convince people it’s not worth turning out to vote. 

“Unfortunately, there’s a danger that the entire effort to increase cybersecurity in elections will get tarred by the unfounded rantings of a few people,” Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told me. “There are legitimate things that need to be done to improve the security of our election systems and they should be done regardless of what some crazy people are alleging.” 

There’s a potential silver lining as election security is likely to remain a hot topic in Washington after 2020. 

The fact that it’s entered the discourse at such a high level among Republicans – even because of dubious circumstances – suggests there could eventually be a more bipartisan focus on ensuring future elections are conducted securely and transparently. 

Election security has improved considerably since 2016 with the addition of paper ballots for millions more voters and a surge in post-election audits  But there’s still a lot more to be done. 

Security advocates now have to thread an important political messaging needle as the debate gets incredibly polarized. The issue was already precarious following the 2016 election when Democrats’ fears about Russian hacking were high – but Trump often reacted to discussion about election security and Russia’s efforts to undermine the 2016 contest as suggesting that his victory over Hillary Clinton was illegitimate. 

That…

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