BERMAN: New this morning, the U.S. State Department reportedly has not spent a dime of the $120 million allocated to fight Russian election meddling. This is according to the "The New York Times." The administration is just sitting on the money, that is meant to counter Russia's disinformation campaign. Joining me now is Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a Democrat, a member of the Foreign Affairs and also the Judiciary Committee. So, a lot of these Russia issues fit squarely into your purview, Congressman. What do you make of "The New York Times" report that the State Department was allocated this money and couldn't find a way to spend it?</s>REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Yes. Good morning. It's great to be with you. It's just another piece of very disturbing evidence that this administration is not taking the very real threat of Russia seriously. We have heard from a number of our intelligence community about the failure to get a directive from the president to take action. We've seen the president himself minimize and describe all of this as a hoax and fake news, although our intelligence community say emphatically that the Russians meddled in our presidential election. They're continuing to engage in activities to destabilize our democracy. This is really an attack on our democracy and we have tools and resources that should be committed to fight this. The Global Engagement Center is one of those so we can really counter this Russia propaganda and this is very disturbing. We need a president that not only takes this seriously but leads a national effort with the sense of urgency to protect our democratic institutions, to protect the 2018 election and to be sure the American people get to decide who will hold public office in this country and not anyone else.</s>BERMAN: It's sort of ironic that this news is coming out with the president just putting out a statement this morning where he said President Obama did nothing about Russian election meddling.
NYT: State Department Spent Zero of $120 Million Meant To Fight Meddling.