JUDY WOODRUFF: We turn back
to the Russia investigations
and the issue at their core:

that government's meddling
in the 2016 U.S. election.

How Russian officials made
it happen is the focus of at
least three official probes in

Washington, but information
about what they did and didn't
do to our voting process and

to our confidence in
our election system has
come in fits and starts.

A new cover story for "TIME"
magazine takes a deep dive into
what we know now, connecting

the dots of how, why
and how far they went.

It's titled "Inside the
Secret Plan to Stop Vladimir
Putin's U.S. Election Plot."

And the author, "TIME"
magazine's Massimo Calabresi,
is here with me now.

Welcome to the program, Massimo.

So, what you have reported in
this issue of "TIME" is what
we don't know before, how far

the federal government had
gone last year to prevent
damage by the Russians.

MASSIMO CALABRESI, "TIME":
In the days leading up
to the election, the top
federal cyber-security

officials realized that,
for the efforts they
had taken throughout
the election, our voting

system was still vulnerable, not
to interference with the actual
vote count, but to undermining

the credibility of the vote,
the integrity of the vote,
which is, of course, the purpose

of voting to begin with,
to reach a consensus
that the democratic
will of the people has

been expressed.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what
was it that the government
was prepared to do?

MASSIMO CALABRESI: Well, they
enumerated in this 15-page
plan some extraordinary steps.

They stipulated at the beginning
that, under most circumstances,
the federal government

would defer to the states
in a cyber-incident,
but in a particularly
bad one, for example,

one that halted voting at a
voting place, they would go
so far as to send armed law

enforcement, federal
law enforcement agents
to polling places.

They were prepared to
deploy active and reserve
military forces in case
of a massive incident.

And they also prepared for
counterpropaganda efforts in the
wake of the vote, should false

information be spread to try
and undermine its credibility.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what had they
seen that caused them to go to
this length before election?

MASSIMO CALABRESI: So,
initially, they saw
one or two states back
in the summer where

the Russians had broken
into the voter registration
rolls and meddled around.

But the more they looked,
the more they found other
states had been compromised.

And they didn't quite know
what the Russians were doing.

Initially, they thought they
might be able to swing the
vote, but they soon concluded

that actual meddling with
the vote count wasn't
going to be possible.

But they decided that what
the Russians could do was take
certain actions that would call

into question whether it
had been free and fair, like
interfering with the reporting

systems on election
night, meddling with
voter rolls throughout
the country in ways that

would cause long lines
or, in swing states, might
cause an extraordinary
number of provisional

ballots to be cast.

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Excuse me,
but there were instances
where -- you have
reported, because you have

written a number of
stories about this, were in
California, for example.

There was an instance where a
number of people reported they
had trouble voting because of

how their identity had been
changed in voter registration.

MASSIMO CALABRESI:
That's absolutely right.

On primary day in California
in June 2016, the local DA
started getting a bench of calls

from voters saying that they
were not being allowed to vote
because their voter registration

information had been changed
in the statewide voter
registration database.

The hackers remain unknown in
that case because the state of
California doesn't record the

I.P. addresses of computers
that make changes.

But, looking back, the federal
officials who were in charge
of defending the vote, in the

context of the other Russian
intrusions, concluded
that this might have
been a test run by the

Russians to show what kind
of disruption they could
cause on Election Day.

And indeed, in this county
in California, the voters
became quite agitated, and the

mystery actually fed the doubt.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, I want
to press you on this, because
you're saying that the Russians

were not able -- they weren't
worried that the Russians were
going to be able to change

the final vote count.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But were able
to get in, in a remarkable
way, into state voter files,

into election systems.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: And this is
what's so important, because the
Russians had over time become

bolder and bolder about their
intrusions, and had not tried
to hide the fact that they

were breaking into systems.

The Russians are very
skilled cyber-actors, among
the best in the world.

So the fact they were remaining
in the open was a clue to the
larger purpose of the operation.

And it's crucial to
keep this in mind.

The first and primary goal of
the Russian operation against
the election was to undermine

American faith in the
democratic process, the
first and abiding goal.

Every secondary goal that came
had to first fulfill undermining
our faith in the democratic

process.

And so what the cyber-security
officials at the White House
and across government at the

FBI and intelligence community
concluded was that these
intrusions were less about the

specific effect that they
could have than they were on
undermining the faith of the

Americans in
elections generally.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And it appears
that they succeeded, at
least in part, in doing that.

And you report that there is
every reason to think that
they may still be engaged in

this.

We have an election, governors
election coming up, this year.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: That's right.

That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All
of our congressional
elections next year.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: That's right.

That's right.

The crucial thing here is,
this is an attack by Russia on
America, not on a particular

candidate or on a
particular party.

Their interests are in weakening
the U.S. at home and abroad.

And that's why it's so important
now that we take steps to
try and secure our election,

so that this kind of exercise,
propaganda, influence operation
designed to undermine

our faith in the democratic
process here can't
succeed in the future.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how high
up in the Russian government
does the direction of this go?

We know that at one point
President Obama was reportedly
telling Vladimir Putin, cut

it out.

MASSIMO CALABRESI:
Well, that's right.

Obama famously confronted him
in that photograph of the two
staring at each other icily in

China at a meeting and
told him to cut it out.

The intelligence community
reported publicly in
their assessment in
January that the operation

had been approved at
the highest level.

And my sources tell
me that means Putin.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it doesn't
get any higher than that.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And
it's a remarkable
collection of stories.

Congratulations on
all this reporting.

And I know you're
continuing to work on it.

MASSIMO CALABRESI: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Massimo Calabresi
with "TIME," thank you.

MASSIMO CALABRESI:
Thanks for having me.