"The Internet has given us amazing new tools that help us work, communicate and participate in our economy, but these tools can also be exploited by criminals, terrorists, and enemy governments," Sessions said in the statement. "At the Department of Justice, we take these threats seriously. That is why today I am ordering the creation of a Cyber-Digital Task Force to advise me on the most effective ways that this Department can confront these threats and keep the American people safe."
Top priority has been given to the "study of efforts to interfere with our elections; efforts to interfere with our critical infrastructure, [and] the mass theft of corporate, governmental and private information," the statement said.
The creation of the task force comes on the heels of Special Counsel Robert Muller's February 16 indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three organizations for conspiring to interfere in the 2016 US election.
Russian officials have repeatedly said the allegations of election interference are groundless and intended to deflect public attention from actual instances of election misconduct as well as other pressing concerns.
