august, august 15th, we now know the fbi was investigating not only what russia was trying to do to intrude in our election, but also whether the russians might have any american confederates who were trying to help them. by august 15th, the homeland security secretary jeh johnson convened a conference call with all the top elections officials all over the country to give them all an in-person warning from the secretary of homeland security about security risks to state election systems. he got on the phone with all the secretaries of state in the country to talk to them about russia s aggression and apparent willingness to meddle in that particular election and what appeared to be their designs specifically on our election infrastructure in the states. now that call, jeh johnson will later explain, didn t go all that well, but then three days later, august 18th, 2016, the fbi sent out a secret flash
appeared to be their designs specifically on our election infrastructure in the states. now that call, jeh johnson will later explain, didn t go all that well, but then three days later, august 18th, 2016, the fbi sent out a secret flash alert from its cyberdivision, again, warning state election officials, warning secretaries of state that they needed to take steps now to beef up their firewalls, beef up their other security measures because it wasn t some vague sense of hostile intentions towards our elections. no, by that point the fbi cyberdivision had observed russian state hackers specifically targeting multiple u.s. states and succeeding in breeching security and getting into election systems so conceivably they could mess with the vote or mess with voter registrations in at least two states. so the fbi sent out that flash alert august 18th, 2016, sent it from the fbi cyberdivision that was supposed to be a secret alert to all the states.
specifically on our election infrastructure in the states. now that call, jeh johnson will later explain, didn t go all that well, but then three days later, august 18th, 2016, the fbi sent out a secret flash alert from its cyberdivision, again, warning state election officials, warning secretaries of state that they needed to take steps now to beef up their firewalls, beef up their other security measures because it wasn t some vague sense of hostile intentions towards our elections. no, by that point the fbi cyberdivision had observed russian state hackers specifically targeting multiple u.s. states and succeeding in breaching security and getting into election systems so conceivably they could mess with the vote or mess with voter