Democratic lawmakers push Paul Ryan for info on election hacks

Top Democratic lawmakers from six House committees are calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to compel the Trump administration to produce all information regarding Russian cyberattacks against the U.S. prior to and during the 2016 presidential election.

The highest-ranking Democrats on the committees on Oversight and Government Reform, Judiciary, Intelligence, House Administration, Homeland Security, and Foreign Affairs wrote a letter to Ryan, R-Wis., asking for documents about the Russian attacks that various lawmakers have been after for months.

“We have been trying to work through the committee process, but we have faced two obstacles: the Trump administration is refusing to provide the documents we requested, and Republicans appear to have no interest in compelling the Trump administration to produce them,” the ranking members wrote in the letter.  “Our goal is to obtain the documents collected and prepared by our federal agencies about these Russian attacks in order to take concrete steps to prevent this from happening again.  That is our responsibility under the Constitution.”

The letter details numerous requests previously made, including ones calling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to produce the documents related to the 21 state election systems targeted by the Russian government prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In October, senior Oversight Committee members Robin Kelly, D-Ill., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., sent a letter to DHS requesting documents. After a very small response, all Democratic members of the Committee sent a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy asking for a subpoena compelling DHS to produce the documents.

DHS did provide some documentation in February: 50 pages detailing how the Department found out about the Russian cyberattacks. This information was already publicly available and didn’t give further details about specific attacks.

In February, Democrats were blocked by Republicans in an Oversight Committee business meeting when they moved to discuss and vote on subpoenaing DHS for the outstanding documents. Gowdy never issued a subpoena.

“We have exhausted our efforts at the committee level, and we ask that you now personally intervene to protect the integrity and authorities to the House of Representatives to obtain the documents we need to protect our nation against foreign attacks,” the letter to Ryan states.

You can read it in full here.