PD Editorial: Russia is ready to meddle in 2018 elections too

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, offered a startling assessment of Russia's intent to meddle in this year's mid-term election.

“Frankly,” Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, “the United States is under attack.”

Underscoring his warning, a federal grand jury on Friday charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations with interfering with the 2016 presidential election.

The indictments echoed tactics identified by Coats, including manipulation of social media, the creation of fake personas and the use of troll farms and bots that fire off phony comments and ersatz news reports like so many electronic bullets.

Coats was joined by five other senior intelligence officials, including CIA director Mike Pompeo, who concurred with his warning. “We have seen Russian activities and intentions to have an impact on the next election cycle,” he told the committee.

Coats and Pompeo, it should be noted, aren't holdovers from the Obama administration or products of some murky deep-state conspiracy. Before President Donald Trump gave them top posts in America's intelligence apparatus, they were among the most conservative members of Congress.

Yet their warnings fall on deaf ears at the White House.

The president routinely mocks the idea of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Indeed, on more than one occasion, Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin's denials.

Let's be clear. There is a distinction between Russian meddling and suspicion of collusion during the 2016 election.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is trying to determine whether anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign participated in Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the election, and Mueller should be allowed to complete his work without interference.

But the evidence of Russian meddling already was overwhelming long before Friday's indictments.

In the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, intelligence and law enforcement agencies linked Russian hackers to thefts of information from computers belonging to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

Federal officials also reported attempts to hack voter rolls and voting systems.

Facebook now acknowledges that some 126 million Americans may have seen Russian-backed political content on its site during the 2016 election cycle, and Twitter found 2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives.

In January, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority issued a report concluding that Putin's government has employed Russia's security services, public and private groups and even criminal organizations to interfere with democratic elections around the world for nearly two decades.

Trump's response was predictable. He blasted Democrats for releasing the report and, once again, denied that any meddling occurred. “Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing,” he said on Twitter.

If the Russians are laughing, it's because Trump is ignoring an urgent threat to American democracy.

Contrite executives from Facebook, Twitter, Google and other Silicon Valley companies acknowledge that their sites were used by Russian operatives seeking to influence American election with inflammatory comments, fake news reports and even targeted advertising. They say their committed to stopping the abuse of their platforms.

Their delivery on those promises should receive careful scrutiny.

But tech companies can't protect the integrity of American elections on their own. It's going to take leadership from Washington. And that means the president needs to start listening to his own intelligence agencies and stop believing Vladimir Putin.