Senate

Senate Democrats dissatisfied with White House’s election security efforts

by Jordain Carney - 08/02/18 5:28 PM ET

Senate Democrats urged the administration to take election security “more seriously” on Thursday, the same day the White House had five of its top security officials discuss their efforts ahead of November’s midterms.

The Democratic senators said in a joint statement that national security advisor John Bolton sent them a letter that fails to address their concerns about Russian meddling.

“We implore the administration to take this very real and imminent threat to our elections and our democracy more seriously,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.).

Bolton sent Democrats a letter on Thursday touting President Trump’s “vast, government-wide effort” to protect the election system, adding that the president “will not tolerate interference.”

{mosads}But Democrats argue the letter doesn’t respond to a slate of issues they raised in their initial July 27 letter to Bolton, including fully implementing Russia sanctions legislation and securing the extradition of the Russian nationals accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

“Bolton’s response does not address any of this and failed to urge Republicans in the Senate to reconsider their position blocking critical funding requested by 21 states to bolster election security ahead of the midterms,” the Democratic senators wrote.

Bolton’s letter comes as the administration’s five top national security officials, including Bolton, made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room as part of an effort to show the administration is confronting Russian efforts to interfere in the midterm elections.

The press conference comes amid growing alarm in Washington about Russia’s attempts to meddle in the November congressional races. But the rhetoric appeared to do little to assuage Democrats.

Van Hollen, in a separate statement, said Trump’s team was confirming “what we’ve long known” and urged them to support his legislation with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that would slap new penalties on Moscow if the director of national intelligence determines they meddled in future elections.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said in a tweet that he was “glad to see the White House finally do something about election security — even if it’s only a press conference. Now if only it was actually backed up by anything the President has said or done on Russia.”