The Defense Department should be protecting state-managed elections against cyberattacks by Russia that could swing the outcome, Sen. John McCain said Thursday.
McCain, in a tense exchange with a top Pentagon official during a Senate Armed Services Committee, said new legislation could allow the department to intervene in the event of an attack.
The hearing on cybersecurity quickly veered toward Russian meddling in the presidential election last year and whether it should be considered worthy of a U.S. military response.
“For you to sit there and say, well but it’s not the Department of Defense’s responsibility, it is,” McCain told Kenneth Rapuano, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security. “The reason why we are here is because of free and fair elections. If you can change the outcome of an election, that has consequences far more serious than a physical attack.”
The U.S. intelligence community determined Russian operatives, directed by President Vladimir Putin, spread disinformation, leaked hacked documents and attempted to penetrate local election operations during the run-up to the election between President Trump and Hillary Clinton.
“I’m simply saying that based on the state authorities and the state control of the election process in each state, there are issues associated with federal authorities to engage,” Rapuano told McCain.
The U.S. largely leaves the election system in the hands of states and local governments, and the military is restricted from unilaterally engaging in law enforcement operations.
The National Guard does have cybersecurity forces that are now assisting state governors to find cyber vulnerabilities in their election systems, Rapuano said.
“We certainly view quite appropriate the governor tasking them under state authority versus the Department of Defense attempting to assert itself into the process without being directly requested,” he said.
McCain shot back that the seriousness of the threat could require changes to U.S. law that would give the military more leeway in dealing with election attacks.
“Those issues could be corrected by legislation. They are not engraved in tablets, OK,” he said.
