Mattis says the military will help protect elections from Russia

The Defense Department will provide all support necessary to the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies to protect U.S. elections from Russian interference and other bad actors, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis told reporters today.

The secretary also said the U.S. military must address space as a developing warfighting domain that may lead to creation of a new combatant command.

The Russian government was responsible for the attacks on the U.S. election process in 2016, Mattis told reporters. "We all saw what happened in 2016 when the Russians – and possibly others, but the Russians for certain – tried to do both influence operations and actually get in to try to corrupt some of the process," he said.