Sen. Ben Cardin said Wednesday that President Trump has done nothing to protect the upcoming midterm elections against another possible attack from foreign entities.
“There’s been no effort made to deal with Russia cyber activities,” Mr. Cardin, Maryland Democrat, said on CNN.
He said Mr. Trump needs to make more of an effort to work with social media companies to prevent another future attack, as well as enforce the sanction powers given to him by Congress.
“With the president of the United States not taking leadership — the way our free election system works, the way that it is so open — you need to be sophisticated in your defense,” he explained.
Mr. Cardin said he’s concerned that without proper protections in place, the Russians will try to meddle in the U.S. elections, as they tried to do in 2016, only this time he fears they could be successful.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo agreed that Russia will likely try to influence the midterm elections, but he expressed confidence the system had enough roadblocks in place to prevent any meddling.
“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I’m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust, that the impact they have on our election won’t be great,” Mr. Pompeo said in an interview with the BBC on Monday.
• Andrew Blake contributed to this article.
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