Mike Pompeo offers $10 million reward for information on US election meddling

US Secretary of States Mike Pompeo, on August 5, announced a $10 million reward for anybody who identifies a state actor under foreign influence interfering in November elections. The 2016 presidential elections created controversy after US intelligence accused Russia of conducting a ‘disinformation campaign’ to favour  Donald Trump. Though Pompeo at the press briefing, did not specify Russia in particular, US intelligence has their retaliated suspicion of another effort by Russians or other US adversaries.

'For information leading to interference' 

The United States "is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any person who, acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government, interferes with US elections by engaging in certain criminal cyber activities," Pompeo said at the press briefing.

Elaborating further, the US State Department said that any persons engaged in certain 'malicious cyber operations' targeting election or campaign infrastructure may be subject to prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. SS 1030, which criminalizes unauthorized computer intrusions and other forms of fraud related to computers. In a recently released statement, they further said the statute further prohibits unauthorized accessing of computers to obtain information and transmit it to unauthorized recipients. 

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This comes as the White House and US President Donald Trump’s advisers said that the vote will go ahead as planned on November 3. As per reports, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said that Trump was just raising concerns about the mail-in ballots when he suggested the idea of delaying the 2020 elections and it had nothing to do with the ongoing pandemic. Reportedly, Mark was also optimistic about the Republican Party win in the elections. Jason Miller, Presidential campaign adviser also said that the elections will indeed take place on November 3. He further added that even Trump wants the vote to go ahead as scheduled.

(Image credit: AP)

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