By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he ”could” raise the issue of the alleged Russian hacking of the US federal court filing system during his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
Trump told reporters at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday “I guess I could… They hack in, that’s what they do. They are good at it. We are good at it; we are actually better at it. I have heard about it.”
His remarks came after reports that investigators have found evidence suggesting Russia’s involvement in a recent breach of the US federal court document system, which contained highly sensitive records that could reveal sources and individuals charged with national security crimes, media reported.
The disclosure came days before Trump’s scheduled meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, where he plans to push for an end to the war in Ukraine.
The officials have described it as a years-long effort to infiltrate the system as it remains unclear whether Russian intelligence or another country was behind the hack.
According to media reports, some searches targeted mid-level criminal cases in New York City and other jurisdictions, several involving defendants with Russian and Eastern European surnames.
According to an internal memo the US court administrators warned Justice Department officials, clerks, and chief judges in federal courts that “persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors have recently compromised sealed records”.
The advisory urged immediate removal of the most sensitive documents from the system.
“This remains an URGENT MATTER that requires immediate action,” the memo read, referred to guidance first issued in early 2021 after the system was initially infiltrated.
The breach is believed to have exposed documents related to criminal activity with overseas links across at least eight district courts.
The chief judges of district courts across the country were quietly told to transfer such cases off the regular system and were initially instructed not to discuss the matter with other judges in their districts.
