Where was Rod Rosenstein when his own state was infiltrated by Russians while he was sitting U.S. Attorney for Maryland?
Rosenstein, now U.S. Deputy Attorney General, served as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland from 2005 to 2017. He has been overseeing and guiding U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller to indict dozens of Russians in the Trump probe but where was his office when a Russian-financed firm took control of Maryland’s voting system?
Right under his nose.
Maryland officials tell the 11 News I-Team that the FBI has informed them that the state’s voter registration system and other online systems operate on a software platform owned by a Russian-financed firm. No known breaches are known.
The Maryland State Board of Elections said in a statement: “In response to today’s indictment, we want to assure Maryland voters that Maryland’s State Board of Elections was not the State election office mentioned in the indictment. Additionally, no Maryland election official has used or is using services provided by the vendor referenced in the indictment.”
“The FBI gave this office important information about a vendor the State Board of Election uses to host various election systems. This vendor — ByteGrid LLC — hosts the statewide voter registration, candidacy, and election management system, the online voter registration system, online ballot delivery system, and unofficial election night results website. According to the FBI, ByteGrid LLC is financed by AltPoint Capital Partners, whose fund manager is a Russian and its largest investor is a Russian oligarch named Vladimir Potanin.”
“In response to this information, we have been working with various federal and State officials to ensure that voter data and our election systems are secure. The FBI did not state that there was evidence of any breach or fraudulent transactions, but we must act immediately to confirm that this is the case. Over the next several days, we will continue to work with our federal and State partners to develop a plan of action to audit existing data, review existing defenses, and immediately implement any changes to secure the systems and data before the 2018 General Election.”
“According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Maryland was one of the states with suspicious online activities before the 2016 General Election. In August 2016, we saw some unusual activity on the State’s online voter registration and ballot request system and immediately responded. We provided log files to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), one of the State’s cybersecurity vendors, and another cybersecurity firm, and all three entities independently reviewed the transactions related to the suspicious activity. All three entities came to the same conclusion – there were “no suspicious artifacts.”
Where was Rosenstein when this happened during his tenure?
[give_form id=”79809″] [contentcards url=”http://www.wbaltv.com/article/maryland-voter-registration-system-runs-on-russian-owned-software-i-team-learns/22144023″ target=”_blank”]