U.S. Defense Secretary James N. Mattis has said the Department of Defense (DoD) is not focused on one country in election meddling.
"The Defense Department will provide all support necessary to the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies to protect U.S. elections from Russian interference and other bad actors," Mattis told reporters on August 7, according to the report on the U.S. Department of Defense website.
Read alsoDirector of National Intelligence: Russian interference in U.S. political system ongoing
The Russian government was responsible for the attacks on the U.S. election process in 2016, Mattis told reporters. "We all saw what happened in 2016 when the Russians – and possibly others, but the Russians for certain – tried to do both influence operations and actually get in to try to corrupt some of the process," he said.
Mattis emphasized that DoD is not focused on one country, but on protecting the election process itself. DoD is guarding against influence operations and on attempts to corrupt the process, he said.
