President Donald Trump will chair a National Security Council meeting this week that focuses on election security, said two White House officials, Politico reported.
National security adviser John Bolton is also hosting two Cabinet-level committee meetings with NSC principals this week, one focusing on Iran and one on North Korea, the officials said.
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia will attempt to interfere in the November midterm elections, similar to their efforts to disrupt the 2016 president election, the report said.
Lawmakers, cybersecurity experts and state officials have taken aim at the White House for not providing leadership on coordinating the government’s election security efforts, with some saying that Bolton’s decision to eliminate a White House cybersecurity coordinator position has compounded the issues, the Politico report said.
The election security meeting comes after Trump appeared to cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s claim that Russia was continuing to target U.S. elections. Later, he said he believed the intelligence statements.