Our picksWest Panics, Putin Watching | White Supremacists & COVID-19 | Spies & COVID-19, and more

Fauci: Trump’s Remarks Can Lead to “Misunderstandings” (VOA)
President Donald Trump’s top disease expert says some of what Trump expresses in coronavirus briefings “could lead to some misunderstanding” about the facts. Fauci says there isn’t much he can do when Trump makes a misstatement.
“I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time,” Fauci said.

White supremacists discussed using the coronavirus as a bioweapon, explosive internal document reveals (Sonam Sheth, Business Insider)
Federal investigators have learned that white supremacists discussed plans to use the coronavirus as a bioweapon, Yahoo News reported, citing a weekly intelligence brief from a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
“White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently commented on the coronavirus stating that it is an ‘OBLIGATION’ to spread it should any of them contract the virus,” the document said.
White supremacists suggested targeting law enforcement and “nonwhite” people in particular.
They floated options like leaving “saliva on door handles” at local FBI offices, spitting on elevator buttons, spreading the virus in “nonwhite neighborhoods,” and being in public with their perceived enemies.

DHS Chief: False Reports of National Shutdown May Be Part of Russian Disinformation Campaign (Justin Wise, The Hill)
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Sunday that false reports that the U.S. is imposing a national quarantine because of the novel coronavirus are part of a “disinformation campaign” possibly stemming from Russia. 
Speaking on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Wolf acknowledged that he’s been contacted several times about text messages circulating that say “we’re going to have a national lockdown or a national quarantine.”
“I would just say, that’s absolutely false. It’s not true,” he said. “And it is part of a disinformation campaign.”

As the West Panics, Putin Is Watching (Elizabeth Braw, Foreign Policy)
As the West Panics, Putin Is Watching

The Russians Are Coming Again, and They’re Winning (Casey Michel, Daily Beast)
One thing appears certain: Russia’s victory last week in our courts is only going to further embolden the trolls as we go through the 2020 election.

Coronavirus Confinement Challenges Intelligence Services (Didier Lauras, AFP)
The home confinement of hundreds of millions of people worldwide to halt coronavirus contagion has presented intelligence services with a challenge: monitoring an explosion in internet traffic, above board and not, even as their own capacity is reduced.
The global health crisis has exposed the internet as both a tool and a potential target for malefactors, experts say, with agents—many themselves working from home—having to sift through the deluge looking for credible threats.
Criminals could take advantage of the disarray to launch attacks on government and nuclear systems, alter scientific or electoral data, paralyze servers, or spread fake news.

Russia’s Long-Term Campaign of Disinformation in Europe (Agnieszka Legucka, Carnegie Endowment)
Knowing the strategic goals of Russian foreign policy, the EU must prepare for Russian disinformation being a long-term tool for contesting the order in Europe.

The U.S. Military’s Behind-the-Scenes Moves to Protect Nuclear Readiness Amid Coronavirus (William M Arkin, Newsweek)
The Defense Department shifted many of its domestic bases to “health protection condition” Charlie on Sunday, the latest in a series of moves to protect military forces, families and bases from coronavirus. HPCON Charlie – also known as “substantial threat of sustained community transmission” – is the fourth highest of five levels.
Though Pentagon officials continue to insist that the coronavirus pandemic has had no impact on operational readiness of the armed forces, behind the scenes military exercises and deployments are being scaled down and canceled, and plans are being put in place to sustain essential operations. That includes the so-called triad of bombers, land-based missiles and submarines that make up the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

China Borrowing Russian Tactics to Spread Coronavirus Disinformation (Shannon Vavra, Cybersecurity)
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s state-backed information operations have been following Russia’s playbook for spreading disinformation, an expert on the subject told a panel on Monday.
The Chinese Communist Party, typically thought to run disinformation operations aimed at controlling the narrative, is mirroring behavior that is historically associated with Russian disinformation — spreading chaos and confusion. In this case, it’s about whether the coronavirus actually originated in China, Laura Rosenberger, the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, said during a disinformation event hosted by the CyberPeace Institute (CPI), a nonprofit founded last year to call out malicious cyber activities.