Wray: Russia Poses A "Very Significant Counterintelligence Threat"
SAVIDGE: FBI Director Christopher Wray believes the Russia or Russia rather poses a very significant counterintelligence threat. Responding to a question about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Wray responded saying that although everybody has their own adjectives, the threat is serious.</s>WRAY: I do think that Russia poses a very significant counterintelligence threat, certainly in the cyber arena, certainly what we call the malign foreign influence territory, certainly under the presence of intelligence officers in this country. So in a lot of ways, yes.</s>SAVIDGE: Jonathan Wackrow is a former Secret Service agent under President Obama, he joins me now. Thanks for being here.</s>JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks, Martin.</s>SAVIDGE: So, based on your experience, what are the inherent risks to national security when the president and his senior advisers seem to fail to address the identified risk of foreign interference?</s>WACKROW: Well, listen, right there in the question that, you know, we fail to elevate this and have a conversation around election security as being a fundamental key national security risk. You know, in the wake of the Mueller report, you know, some of the things and the criticism that's been logged back to the Obama administration was their failure to recognize this threat in advance of the 2016 -- we're -- 2016 election. We're almost in the same position right now. The White House, you know, the Oval Office is not, you know, taking this as a serious threat. And then, you know, they're unable to govern correctly across all resources of the government's ability to respond to the threat.</s>SAVIDGE: I think everybody knows by now that Russia did this in 2016 and, clearly, they are likely to do it again in 2020.</s>WACKROW: Correct.</s>SAVIDGE: The lack of attention by the White House, how does that impact though getting ready for that potential influence?</s>WACKROW: Listen, we already know that they have attacked us once. The problem is, they're not going to follow the exact same pathway and the same methodology. So right now, the risk to -- you know, the government right now is that we are not developing a near term and long term strategy on how to mitigate this threat. Listen, we know it's coming. We're, you know, 500-plus days away from the 2020 election. We need to be, you know, digging in and developing a very comprehensive strategy to address, you know, election interference whether it's from a cyber attack or from a disinformation campaign that we saw in the run-up to the 2016 election.</s>SAVIDGE: So that said, if the White House chooses to sort of overlook this, can the intelligence community work independent of the White House to protect us?</s>WACKROW: Yes. Thankfully they are. And I think if you look at statements that have been made by, you know, the FBI director just a moment ago, and then statements that have been made by Dan Coats the director of National Intelligence, they are worried about this. They have seen this as a significant threat, you know, coming from China, from Russia. And they have identified that there is a significant risk to election interference. However, they only have a certain bandwidth to mitigate this. It goes back to a, we need a strategy that's coming out of the White House, out of the National Security Council that's comprehensive that looks beyond just the intelligence community that we're able to take resources across the entire spectrum of the government to mitigate this threat.</s>SAVIDGE: I think the classic view that many Americans might have is that the Russians would try to get into the computer systems of the states' voting and change the vote tallies. That's not what they would do, right?</s>WACKROW: Well, listen, Russia is going to take the path of least resistance. And without a national, you know, strategy that's going to mitigate, you know, future vulnerabilities to our electoral system, the onus falls back to a state by state, you know, strategy. And I think that's inherently a risk because all of a sudden, states, you know, bear the responsibility of protecting the electoral process but they only have a limited resource, they have a limited resource to protect their own states. And all of a sudden, we have 50 plans nationwide to mitigate a threat? That inherently is a -- is the wrong strategy to put forth. We need to rely on the White House to set the proper strategy on go for basis to, you know, protect our electorate.</s>SAVIDGE: Jonathan Wackrow, we appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you.</s>WACKROW: OK, thanks a lot, Martin.</s>SAVIDGE: Coming up, how about this, using drones to deliver items. Not that new, we've heard of it. But now drones could be used to save lives, delivering organs for transplant operations. The first of its kind flight coming up next.