News Information and Media Site: On Politics A.M.: Russian Hackers Grow Stealthier in 2020

January 10, 2020

Good Friday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

While United States election defenses have improved since 2016, many of the vulnerabilities exploited four years ago remain. Russian hackers and trolls are growing stealthier, taking precautions like ditching email accounts that were being tracked by Western intelligence agencies and moving to encrypted communication tools that are much harder to trace.

The House voted on Thursday to force President Trump to go to Congress for authorization before taking further military action against Iran, in a sharp rebuke of his decision to ratchet up hostilities with Tehran without the explicit approval of the legislative branch.

Mr. Trump asserted without evidence that a top Iranian commander killed in an American airstrike was plotting to blow up an American embassy. His unsubstantiated claim came as Democrats demanded details on the intelligence that prompted the decision to kill the commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

When senior administration officials gathered in the Situation Room on Tuesday for a meeting to discuss the repercussions of the killing of Mr. Suleimani, the White House aide whose portfolio is the Middle East was notably absent: Jared Kushner.

Mr. Trump’s military strike on the Iranian general and other aggressive actions against Tehran have given China ammunition to undermine the Trump administration’s main line of critique on Beijing’s human rights record.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid the groundwork on Thursday to send the House’s impeachment charges against Mr. Trump to the Senate, preparing for a likely vote next week to bring them to trial even as she publicly declared she was in no rush to do so.

Hoping to translate his confrontation with Iran into strength, Mr. Trump opened his re-election year on Thursday in Ohio, a battleground state where he has devoted much of his travel over the last three years.

The Sunrise Movement, a group of young climate activists, announced Thursday that it was endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, in another sign that left-wing advocacy groups have increasingly coalesced around his candidacy.

While Mr. Sanders is making gains in some places, he faces unlikely obstacles in others. New Hampshire’s young people, libertarians and independent voters helped him to a primary victory in 2016. But this time, some of them are eyeing Andrew Yang and Representative Tulsi Gabbard.

Michael Bloomberg’s admirers say he is a chessmaster whose opponents play checkers. More accurately, he is working to bury the board with a gusher of cash so overpowering that everyone forgets how the game was played in the first place.
With two startling polling results released late Thursday afternoon, the billionaire former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer became the sixth candidate to qualify for next week’s Democratic presidential debate.

Today’s On Politics briefing was compiled by Isabella Grullón Paz in New York.

Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.