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The scandal is continuing between President Donald Trump and former aide and reality-show star Omarosa Manigault Newman who is going public with recordings of conversations she had with the president and his chief of staff. Manigault Newman says she secretly recorded the audio, raising questions about possible security breaches at the White House. VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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The scandal is continuing between President Donald Trump and former aide and reality-show star Omarosa Manigault Newman who is going public with recordings of conversations she had with the president and his chief of staff. Manigault Newman says she secretly recorded the audio, raising questions about possible security breaches at the White House. VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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Child’s play or a signs of a serious security problem in one of the nation’s swing states?

That’s the question confronting Florida election officials who are pushing back against reports that an 11-year-old hacked a replica of the state’s election website.

Multiple media outlets over the weekend reported that children at a hacking conference in Las Vegas were able to easily hack into a version of the website that reports election results to the public. An 11-year-old boy got into Florida’s site within 10 minutes, while an 11-year-old girl did it in 15 minutes, according to the organizers of the event called DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village.

State officials contend there’s no way that the replica used by hackers is an actual representation of the state’s website. 

“This was a mock site with likely very few, if any, security measures in place,” said Sarah Revell, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “It is not a real-life scenario and it offers a wholly inaccurate representation of the security of Florida’s elections websites, online databases and voting systems that does not take into account the state-of-the-art security measures the Florida Department of State has in place to prevent any possible hacking attempts from being successful.”

Florida’s election website that displays results is not connected to the actual local election systems responsible for tabulating votes. Instead, on election night supervisors upload unofficial results to state officials through a completely different network.

Still if someone was able to manipulate the website it could create confusion and sow doubts about the actual results once they were announced. Investigators in May found evidence of a cyberattack on a Tennessee county’s elections website from a computer in Ukraine, which likely caused the site to crash just as it was reporting vote totals during a primary.

Nico Sell, one of the organizers of the event, told PBS Newshour on Sunday that the replicas used at the conference were accurate representations.

“The site may be a replica but the vulnerabilities that these kids were exploiting were not replicas, they’re the real thing,” the television network quoted her. “I think the general public does not understand how large a threat this is, and how serious a situation that we’re in right now with our democracy.”

Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County who is a cybersecurity liaison between state and local officials, questioned how outsiders could obtain the security protocols used by Florida if they weren’t already behind the system’s firewalls. He said that all this “hacking noise” and “misinformation plays into the hands of the folks who are trying to undermine democracy.”

Jeff Kosseff, a lawyer and assistant professor at the United States Naval Academy Cyber Studies Department, said states are struggling with election security threats. He said they should work with outsiders in order to see if there are flaws in their systems.

“All states should look at this as a wake-up call,” Kosseff said. “What were the shortcomings identified and how they can fix it.  I don’t think it should be an adversarial.”

The reports of hacking into Florida’s website that reports election results coincide with a dust-up between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott over possible Russian meddling in other parts of the state’s election system.

Nelson last week said Russians were able to get inside the election systems of “certain counties” and “now have free rein to move about.” He added that “the threat is real and elections officials — at all levels — need to address the vulnerabilities.”

The senator has not provided any more details, saying that additional information is classified. Scott has demanded that Nelson provide proof of his claims. Last Friday two Republicans who are on the Senate intelligence community declined to confirm or deny Nelson’s statements.

Russian hackers targeted at least 21 states, including Florida, ahead of the 2016 election and breached the voter registration system in at least one, Illinois, investigators say. An indictment released last month said Russian operatives sent over 100 fake emails to elections offices and personnel in Florida as part of the hacking effort. State officials have never acknowledged how many counties were targeted by the Russians.
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Child’s play or a signs of a serious security problem in one of the nation’s swing states?

That’s the question confronting Florida election officials who are pushing back against reports that an 11-year-old hacked a replica of the state’s election website.

Multiple media outlets over the weekend reported that children at a hacking conference in Las Vegas were able to easily hack into a version of the website that reports election results to the public. An 11-year-old boy got into Florida’s site within 10 minutes, while an 11-year-old girl did it in 15 minutes, according to the organizers of the event called DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village.

State officials contend there’s no way that the replica used by hackers is an actual representation of the state’s website. 

“This was a mock site with likely very few, if any, security measures in place,” said Sarah Revell, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “It is not a real-life scenario and it offers a wholly inaccurate representation of the security of Florida’s elections websites, online databases and voting systems that does not take into account the state-of-the-art security measures the Florida Department of State has in place to prevent any possible hacking attempts from being successful.”

Florida’s election website that displays results is not connected to the actual local election systems responsible for tabulating votes. Instead, on election night supervisors upload unofficial results to state officials through a completely different network.

Still if someone was able to manipulate the website it could create confusion and sow doubts about the actual results once they were announced. Investigators in May found evidence of a cyberattack on a Tennessee county’s elections website from a computer in Ukraine, which likely caused the site to crash just as it was reporting vote totals during a primary.

Nico Sell, one of the organizers of the event, told PBS Newshour on Sunday that the replicas used at the conference were accurate representations.

“The site may be a replica but the vulnerabilities that these kids were exploiting were not replicas, they’re the real thing,” the television network quoted her. “I think the general public does not understand how large a threat this is, and how serious a situation that we’re in right now with our democracy.”

Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County who is a cybersecurity liaison between state and local officials, questioned how outsiders could obtain the security protocols used by Florida if they weren’t already behind the system’s firewalls. He said that all this “hacking noise” and “misinformation plays into the hands of the folks who are trying to undermine democracy.”

Jeff Kosseff, a lawyer and assistant professor at the United States Naval Academy Cyber Studies Department, said states are struggling with election security threats. He said they should work with outsiders in order to see if there are flaws in their systems.

“All states should look at this as a wake-up call,” Kosseff said. “What were the shortcomings identified and how they can fix it.  I don’t think it should be an adversarial.”

The reports of hacking into Florida’s website that reports election results coincide with a dust-up between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott over possible Russian meddling in other parts of the state’s election system.

Nelson last week said Russians were able to get inside the election systems of “certain counties” and “now have free rein to move about.” He added that “the threat is real and elections officials — at all levels — need to address the vulnerabilities.”

The senator has not provided any more details, saying that additional information is classified. Scott has demanded that Nelson provide proof of his claims. Last Friday two Republicans who are on the Senate intelligence community declined to confirm or deny Nelson’s statements.

Russian hackers targeted at least 21 states, including Florida, ahead of the 2016 election and breached the voter registration system in at least one, Illinois, investigators say. An indictment released last month said Russian operatives sent over 100 fake emails to elections offices and personnel in Florida as part of the hacking effort. State officials have never acknowledged how many counties were targeted by the Russians.
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A bill signed by President Donald Trump on Monday asks the Pentagon to pursue more options for defeating U.S.-bound North Korean missiles by using radar and more missiles to spot and shoot down inbound threats.

The National Defense Authorization Act gives the Pentagon $716 billion, with almost $10 billion going to the Missile Defense Agency to fund the expansion of missile defenses, emphasizing the need to stop any North Korean or Iranian attacks.

The military is already exploring whether the United States can add another layer to defenses to those already in place for intercepting incoming missiles in flight, Keith Englander, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s director for engineering, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, last week.

The Missile Defense Agency’s head, Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, has said he wants to integrate the Aegis Combat System into the current ICBM defenses of the U.S. homeland. The Aegis system, mainly found on ships, could be fitted with the Standard Missile 3 Block IIA (SM-3 IIA) interceptors that are being developed in a joint venture between Raytheon Co and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

The Lockheed Martin-made Aegis system is currently deployed aboard 36 U.S. Navy ships, as well as at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Hawaii.

If given the new mission, the ships could patrol the Pacific Ocean and augment the network of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense interceptor missiles in Alaska and California that protect the nation from intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attacks.

This is one of several avenues the Pentagon is studying to knock down inbound missiles. These include shooting the missile down soon after takeoff, stopping it in space as it flies above the Earth’s atmosphere, and killing it soon after it re-enters the atmosphere before hitting its target.

Growing concern

Concern about U.S. missile defenses has grown with the escalating threat from North Korea. Last year, North Korea conducted about a dozen missile tests, including the launch of a suspected ICBM that could hit the U.S. mainland and the test of a purported hydrogen bomb.

North Korea and the United States are struggling to agree on how to bring about the North’s denuclearization, after Kim vowed to work toward that goal at a landmark summit in June in Singapore with Trump.

The potential new defenses must first be tested to make sure the intercepting missile can take out what could be an ICBM fired by Pyongyang.

In a previous spending bill, Congress mandated that the Missile Defense Agency perform an intercept test with the SM-3 IIA missile against an ICBM by the end of 2020.

Last year, Reuters reported that the Pentagon was investigating adding a missile defense layer under the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

In May 2017, the Missile Defense Agency held its first live-fire test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense against a simulated ICBM, and hailed the successful intercept as an “incredible accomplishment.”
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A bill signed by President Donald Trump on Monday asks the Pentagon to pursue more options for defeating U.S.-bound North Korean missiles by using radar and more missiles to spot and shoot down inbound threats.

The National Defense Authorization Act gives the Pentagon $716 billion, with almost $10 billion going to the Missile Defense Agency to fund the expansion of missile defenses, emphasizing the need to stop any North Korean or Iranian attacks.

The military is already exploring whether the United States can add another layer to defenses to those already in place for intercepting incoming missiles in flight, Keith Englander, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s director for engineering, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, last week.

The Missile Defense Agency’s head, Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, has said he wants to integrate the Aegis Combat System into the current ICBM defenses of the U.S. homeland. The Aegis system, mainly found on ships, could be fitted with the Standard Missile 3 Block IIA (SM-3 IIA) interceptors that are being developed in a joint venture between Raytheon Co and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

The Lockheed Martin-made Aegis system is currently deployed aboard 36 U.S. Navy ships, as well as at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Hawaii.

If given the new mission, the ships could patrol the Pacific Ocean and augment the network of Ground-Based Midcourse Defense interceptor missiles in Alaska and California that protect the nation from intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attacks.

This is one of several avenues the Pentagon is studying to knock down inbound missiles. These include shooting the missile down soon after takeoff, stopping it in space as it flies above the Earth’s atmosphere, and killing it soon after it re-enters the atmosphere before hitting its target.

Growing concern

Concern about U.S. missile defenses has grown with the escalating threat from North Korea. Last year, North Korea conducted about a dozen missile tests, including the launch of a suspected ICBM that could hit the U.S. mainland and the test of a purported hydrogen bomb.

North Korea and the United States are struggling to agree on how to bring about the North’s denuclearization, after Kim vowed to work toward that goal at a landmark summit in June in Singapore with Trump.

The potential new defenses must first be tested to make sure the intercepting missile can take out what could be an ICBM fired by Pyongyang.

In a previous spending bill, Congress mandated that the Missile Defense Agency perform an intercept test with the SM-3 IIA missile against an ICBM by the end of 2020.

Last year, Reuters reported that the Pentagon was investigating adding a missile defense layer under the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

In May 2017, the Missile Defense Agency held its first live-fire test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense against a simulated ICBM, and hailed the successful intercept as an “incredible accomplishment.”
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Former presidential adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman is drawing fire from President Donald Trump’s allies and national security experts for secret recordings she made at the White House, including her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room.

Manigault Newman said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she surreptitiously recorded a number of conversations in the White House for her own protection. Parts of her conversation with Kelly were played on the air. Critics denounced the recordings as a serious breach of ethics and security.

“Who in their right mind thinks it’s appropriate to secretly record the White House chief of staff in the Situation Room?” tweeted Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.

In the recording, which Manigault Newman quotes extensively in her new book, “Unhinged,” Kelly can be heard saying that he wants to talk with Manigault Newman about leaving the White House. The Associated Press independently listened to the recording of the conversation.

“It’s come to my attention over the last few months that there’s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you,” Kelly is heard saying, citing her use of government vehicles and “money issues and other things” that he compares to offenses that could lead to a court martial in the military.

“If we make this a friendly departure… you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation and then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation,” he tells Manigault Newman, adding: “There are some serious legal issues that have been violated and you’re open to some legal action that we hope, we think, we can control.”

Manigault Newman said she viewed the conversation as a “threat” and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations.

“If I didn’t have these recordings, no one in America would believe me,” she said.

The response from the White House was stinging. “The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security — and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

The Situation Room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, where the nation’s most consequential foreign policy decisions are made, and staff are not permitted to bring in cellphones or other recording devices.

“I’ve never heard of a more serious breach of protocol,” said Ned Price, who served as spokesman of the National Security Council in the Obama administration. “Not only is it not typical, something like this is unprecedented.”

Price said there is no one checking staffers for devices at the door, but there is a sign outside the room making clear that electronic devices are prohibited.

“The Situation Room is the inner-most sanctum of a secure campus,” he said, describing the breach as part of a culture of disregarding security protocols in the Trump White House. He also questioned why Kelly would ever choose to have such a meeting there.

In the book, which will be released Tuesday, Manigault Newman paints a damning picture of Trump, including claiming without evidence that tapes exist of him using the N-word as he filmed his “The Apprentice” reality series, on which she co-starred.

Manigault Newman wrote in the book that she had not personally heard the recording. But she told Chuck Todd on Sunday that she later was able to hear a recording of Trump during a trip to Los Angeles.

“I heard his voice as clear as you and I are sitting here,” she said on the show.

The White House had previously tried to discredit the book, with Sanders calling it “riddled with lies and false accusations.” Trump on Saturday labeled Manigault Newman a “lowlife.”

Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign who served as a spokeswoman for his 2016 campaign, said she had never heard Trump use the kind of derogatory language Manigault Newman describes. She said in a statement that she feels “pity for Omarosa as she embarrasses herself by creating salacious lies and distortions just to try to be relevant and enrich herself by selling books at the expense of the truth. `Unhinged,’ indeed.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The first time I ever heard Omarosa suggest those awful things about this president are in this book,” she said, noting Manigault Newman “is somebody who gave a glowing appraisal of Donald Trump the businessman, the star of the ‘The Apprentice,’ the candidate and, indeed, the president of the United States.”

Manigault Newman had indeed been a staunch defender of the president for years, including pushing back, as the highest-profile African-American in the White House, on accusations that he was racist.

But Manigault Newman now says she was “used” by Trump, calling him a “con” who “has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities” and is “truly a racist.”

“I was complicit with this White House deceiving this nation,” she said. “I had a blind spot where it came to Donald Trump.”

 
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Former presidential adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman is drawing fire from President Donald Trump’s allies and national security experts for secret recordings she made at the White House, including her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room.

Manigault Newman said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she surreptitiously recorded a number of conversations in the White House for her own protection. Parts of her conversation with Kelly were played on the air. Critics denounced the recordings as a serious breach of ethics and security.

“Who in their right mind thinks it’s appropriate to secretly record the White House chief of staff in the Situation Room?” tweeted Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.

In the recording, which Manigault Newman quotes extensively in her new book, “Unhinged,” Kelly can be heard saying that he wants to talk with Manigault Newman about leaving the White House. The Associated Press independently listened to the recording of the conversation.

“It’s come to my attention over the last few months that there’s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you,” Kelly is heard saying, citing her use of government vehicles and “money issues and other things” that he compares to offenses that could lead to a court martial in the military.

“If we make this a friendly departure… you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation and then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation,” he tells Manigault Newman, adding: “There are some serious legal issues that have been violated and you’re open to some legal action that we hope, we think, we can control.”

Manigault Newman said she viewed the conversation as a “threat” and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations.

“If I didn’t have these recordings, no one in America would believe me,” she said.

The response from the White House was stinging. “The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security — and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

The Situation Room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, where the nation’s most consequential foreign policy decisions are made, and staff are not permitted to bring in cellphones or other recording devices.

“I’ve never heard of a more serious breach of protocol,” said Ned Price, who served as spokesman of the National Security Council in the Obama administration. “Not only is it not typical, something like this is unprecedented.”

Price said there is no one checking staffers for devices at the door, but there is a sign outside the room making clear that electronic devices are prohibited.

“The Situation Room is the inner-most sanctum of a secure campus,” he said, describing the breach as part of a culture of disregarding security protocols in the Trump White House. He also questioned why Kelly would ever choose to have such a meeting there.

In the book, which will be released Tuesday, Manigault Newman paints a damning picture of Trump, including claiming without evidence that tapes exist of him using the N-word as he filmed his “The Apprentice” reality series, on which she co-starred.

Manigault Newman wrote in the book that she had not personally heard the recording. But she told Chuck Todd on Sunday that she later was able to hear a recording of Trump during a trip to Los Angeles.

“I heard his voice as clear as you and I are sitting here,” she said on the show.

The White House had previously tried to discredit the book, with Sanders calling it “riddled with lies and false accusations.” Trump on Saturday labeled Manigault Newman a “lowlife.”

Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign who served as a spokeswoman for his 2016 campaign, said she had never heard Trump use the kind of derogatory language Manigault Newman describes. She said in a statement that she feels “pity for Omarosa as she embarrasses herself by creating salacious lies and distortions just to try to be relevant and enrich herself by selling books at the expense of the truth. `Unhinged,’ indeed.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also questioned Manigault Newman’s credibility in an interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“The first time I ever heard Omarosa suggest those awful things about this president are in this book,” she said, noting Manigault Newman “is somebody who gave a glowing appraisal of Donald Trump the businessman, the star of the ‘The Apprentice,’ the candidate and, indeed, the president of the United States.”

Manigault Newman had indeed been a staunch defender of the president for years, including pushing back, as the highest-profile African-American in the White House, on accusations that he was racist.

But Manigault Newman now says she was “used” by Trump, calling him a “con” who “has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities” and is “truly a racist.”

“I was complicit with this White House deceiving this nation,” she said. “I had a blind spot where it came to Donald Trump.”

 
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Officers kept the peace at this weekend’s protests and counter-protests a year after a deadly far-right rally. Authorities made several arrests in Charlottesville and in northern Virginia, where a small group of right-wing demonstrators took the Metro to their rally outside the White House.

Authorities said a man heading to the “Unite the Right 2” rally in Washington was arrested Sunday for assaulting two Virginia police officers. Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller tells WTOP-FM that Donald Franklin Georgette, 30, was arrested after spitting at the officers outside the Vienna/Fairfax/George Mason University Metro station.

Meanwhile, in Charlottesville, police made several arrests as hundreds marched Saturday in a demonstration against the far-right “Unite the Right” rally that left one dead and others injured a year ago. That march was overwhelmingly peaceful as well, but Charlottesville Police say they’re investigating an alleged assault of an officer who approached a man whose face was covered. Police say the officer and the man fell to the ground. Others pulled them apart, enabling the masked man to get away. No one was injured, and the march continued.

 
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Officers kept the peace at this weekend’s protests and counter-protests a year after a deadly far-right rally. Authorities made several arrests in Charlottesville and in northern Virginia, where a small group of right-wing demonstrators took the Metro to their rally outside the White House.

Authorities said a man heading to the “Unite the Right 2” rally in Washington was arrested Sunday for assaulting two Virginia police officers. Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller tells WTOP-FM that Donald Franklin Georgette, 30, was arrested after spitting at the officers outside the Vienna/Fairfax/George Mason University Metro station.

Meanwhile, in Charlottesville, police made several arrests as hundreds marched Saturday in a demonstration against the far-right “Unite the Right” rally that left one dead and others injured a year ago. That march was overwhelmingly peaceful as well, but Charlottesville Police say they’re investigating an alleged assault of an officer who approached a man whose face was covered. Police say the officer and the man fell to the ground. Others pulled them apart, enabling the masked man to get away. No one was injured, and the march continued.

 
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