House demands to see Trump’s cyberwarfare directive

But senators who oversee the Pentagon are not as concerned

A small but significant quarrel is emerging between a bipartisan team of lawmakers in the House and the Trump administration over how the Pentagon is going about using its newly minted authority to strike back against adversaries in cyberspace.

Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee and its emerging threats subcommittee — in a rare instance of bipartisan pushback against the White House — have repeatedly asked administration officials for a still-secret memo issued by President Donald Trump that lifted earlier restrictions on U.S. Cyber Command’s operations against adversaries.The White House has thus far refused to provide the memo, and the House last week voted to include an amendment in its version of the 2020 Pentagon policy bill that would force the administration to turn over “all National Security Presidential Memorandums relating to Department of Defense operations in cyberspace.”

View the complete July 16 article by Gopal Ratnam and John M Donnelly on The Roll Call website here.