Former DHS head took up cyber despite White House aversion

A top White House official told Kirstjen Nielsen, then Homeland Security secretary, not to bring up election security with President Donald Trump, steering her away from discussing a critical national security threat with a president who bristles at suggestions that Russian interference contributed to his 2016 victory, according to two people familiar with the matter.

One official said the guidance from acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wasn't related to the sensitivity of the election interference issue, but to keep the White House meetings concentrated on border security, the most visible part of Nielsen's sprawling portfolio and the top item on Trump's political agenda.

But it suggests a lack of White House focus on preventing cyberattacks, which Nielsen described during her tenure as a bigger terrorism threat to the United States than planes or bombs. The potential for foreign cyberattacks to shape U.S. elections has been in the spotlight as special counsel Robert Mueller's report outlined efforts made by Russia to steal thousands of emails and internal documents from the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign in 2016.

Despite the lack of White House coordination, Nielsen continued to work on election and cybersecurity with other administration officials, according to people familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private meetings.

The New York Times was the first to report that Nielsen had been told not to talk about the topic.

Mulvaney said in a statement he did not recall any meetings in which he told Nielsen not to bring up election security, and stressed the topic was very important. Trump signed an executive order last fall authorizing sanctions against foreigners who meddle in U.S. elections and requested $17.6 billion for federal cybersecurity efforts next year in his budget. Mulvaney added that federal, state and local governments are now sharing intelligence and federal authorities are conducting security breach training drills.

"The Trump administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections, and we've already taken many steps to prevent it in the future," he said.

Still, Trump and his aides have said Russia's 2016 interference was exaggerated. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, on Tuesday during an interview at the Time 100 Summit in New York minimized Russia's involvement by describing it as "buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent."

"But I think the investigations, and all of the speculation that's happened for the last two years, has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads," he said.

Nielsen resigned April 7 after a rocky 16-month tenure and amid a staff shake-up at her department orchestrated by the White House frustrated by the surging number of Central American migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico. Trump named as acting secretary Kevin McAleenan, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who has little cyber experience. He has since attended meetings on cybersecurity and is working to get up to speed on the topic, aides said.

Nielsen, in meetings with Trump, would attempt to explain to the president that her department was responsible for much more than immigration, according to two people familiar with the matter. But Trump's staff, dealing with a president with a short attention span and a focus on border security, would push her to stay on topic.

Another person said Nielsen took the issue up herself, convening classified meetings with agency heads and Cabinet secretaries, and cross-government strategy sessions with FBI, Justice Department and intelligence officials to chart a path forward on cybersecurity and election security.

Garrett Marquis, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said any suggestion that the administration is giving less than a "than a full-throated effort to secure America's elections" was patently false.

"National Security Council staff leads the regular and continuous coordination of the whole-of-government approach to addressing foreign malign influence and ensuing election security," he said.

The 2018 midterm elections passed with no major disruptions to election infrastructure, though thousands of emails were stolen from aides to the National Republican Congressional Committee by an "unknown entity," federal officials said.

And intelligence agencies constantly warn about the potential for foreign interference.

Chris Krebs, the head of cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency at Homeland Security, has said he thought it possible that the 2018 elections were largely spared in part so foreign agents could save their gunpowder for 2020. Speaking to the Atlantic Council's International Conference on Tuesday, Krebs said the most active cyber threats come from Russia and China, while on the lower end are Iran, North Korea and "then the extremists pace."

He said the U.S. has made progress, especially on information sharing, but that's the "minimum bar."

"We have to get beyond information sharing ... to operationalizing information security," he said.

Associated Press Writer Mike Balsamo and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).

Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.

That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.

In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.

Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.

In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.

“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.

Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.

It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.

“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.

It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.

While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.

“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.

Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.

Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)