A leading Republican on the House Intelligence Committee accused Democrats of being insincere in their efforts to secure elections.
Texas Rep. Will Hurd, ranking member of the panel’s subcommittee on intelligence modernization and readiness, said on Monday the United States does not have a plan to stop disinformation pushed by Russian assets or others over the next 11 months. He said House Democrats, who took back the chamber in January, have done little to safeguard information online and in print.
“It is disingenuous to complain about something at one point and then not be concerned about it, whether you’re winning or you’re losing. And I think that is a perfect example of I think how we’ve seen this Democratic Congress operate over the past year and a half,” Hurd said during an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Hurd, who worked at the CIA for a decade, said the Department of Homeland Security has been active on cybersecurity, but the government does not have direction from Congress on what to do when false information is shared on a large scale.
Hurd pointed to an instance where Russian assets created Twitter and Facebook profiles for a fake Blacktivist group with the intent of sowing discord among Americans during the 2016 election.
The CIA is best equipped of all government agencies to identify and take down disinformation campaigns by bad actors, he said, but a 1974 law on the matter forbids the agency from taking action on domestic concerns.
“Disinformation is a part of covert action. The Russians have been perfecting covert action since communists came into power,” Hurd said, adding it has to be a “whole of society” approach that involves media, social media, government, and others. “I don’t know the answer” to this, he said. “That’s why you gotta get everybody together to think through these questions; you can’t just make something up out of the air.”
He believes the 2020 election “is more of an interest to the Russians than 2018.”
House Democrats this year have pushed three major bills on election security. The most recent bill, the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy Act, passed in October and mandated candidates and political committees report to the FBI and others contact from foreign persons offering help.
Hurd said the actions did not address disinformation campaigns. He clarified he was not calling for lying in online conversations to be outlawed.
