The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website July 23, 2018:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen said that Russia’s election infrastructure interference attempts in 2016 didn’t favor one political party. (Reuters)
“I haven’t seen any evidence that the attempts to interfere in our election infrastructure was to favor a particular political party. I think what we’ve seen on the foreign influence side is they were attempting to intervene and cause chaos on both sides.”
— Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in remarks at the Aspen Security Forum, July 19, 2018
These comments from the Homeland Security secretary appear to be in conflict with the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor President Trump.
The “attempts to interfere in our election infrastructure” that Nielsen mentioned were one aspect of a broader Russian campaign that also included hacking servers, stealing documents and spreading propaganda, according to U.S. intelligence officials.