White House official, former Nunes aide Michael Ellis named NSA general counsel

The Pentagon’s general counsel has selected Michael Ellis, a White House official and former Republican aide on Capitol Hill who has faced accusations of politicizing intelligence, to be the National Security Agency’s next general counsel, according to a U.S. government official familiar with the matter. In recent months the White House has been repeatedly pressuring the Department of Defense’s general counsel to slate Ellis, who served as Intelligence Committee counsel to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., as the top attorney at the NSA, a person familiar with the matter told CyberScoop. The appointment of Ellis to a traditionally non-partisan role could raise questions about whether President Donald Trump is seeking to plant political allies throughout the U.S. government before his final 70 days as a “lame duck” president come to a close. The news comes at a turbulent time for the Trump administration. Trump has refused to concede the election, and in recent hours announced he had […]

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Report: Russian hackers waged broad phishing campaign against company tied to Trump impeachment

Hackers linked to the Russian government have been targeting Burisma, a Ukrainian company tied to the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump, with a wide-ranging phishing campaign, according to California-based anti-phishing firm Area 1 Security. The campaign, which started in November, came as Congress was holding hearings tied to efforts by Trump to have Ukrainian President Voldymr Zelenskiy investigate Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who served on the board of Burisma. The hackers, which Area 1 says work on behalf of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, created fake websites designed to look like legitimate Burisma subsidiary websites and login pages. They then sent Burisma employees emails that looked to be authentic internal company emails with links to illegitimate login pages designed to steal login credentials. The subsidiaries that were mimicked include KUB-Gas LLC, Esko-Pivnich, and CUB Energy Inc., according to the Area 1 report. Although it wasn’t […]

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