I keep seeing people mentioning how the EO has 45 days and then 30 days, which ends on January 19. I've been responding in the threads, but I think it's time for a whole post.

tl;dr: Executive Order (EO) 13848 says that they have 45 days after an election to present an assessment of election interference to the President. Then the agencies have another 45 days to detail that interference and make recommendations. The "30 days" specified in (1f) is for the agencies to implement their own frameworks for following the orders of the EO in 2018 and does not end today.

Section 1a sets a 45 day deadline after an election in which a report must be presented to the President and some key security personnel. If foreign interference is found, Section 1b then allots another 45 days for the agencies to present a detailed report with recommendations.

Section 1f allots 30 days from the date of this order for all of the relevant agencies to create frameworks to follow the EO.

Conveniently and confusingly, election day (11/6) + 45 days (12/21) + 30 days brings us to today (1/19). Given that is the day before Inauguration, many people have latched onto that math, because it makes sense.

Unfortunately, as I read it, 1f is not the time period we should be looking at. By my understanding, it's: Election day (11/6) + 45 days for assessment (12/21) + 45 days for a report, which brings us to February 4.

As I read 1f, it's telling all of the agencies "you've got thirty days to update all your agency's internal policies and procedures to be ready for future elections." The 30 days were specifically 9/12/2018 - 10/12/2018, as the executive order was issued on September 12

It's like this EO says that the Director of National Intelligence must submit their report within 45 days of the election, but doesn't specify the timeline that the Homeland Security, Attorney General, alphabet agencies, etc have to follow internally.

For example, the original thirty days was for the Homeland Security to figure out it's own policies and procedure for doing whatever needs to happen to be able to get that info to the Director of NI by day 45. Maybe there's an internal memo that says a report has to be made to the head of HS by 35 days or something. Maybe it spells out which divisions would be working on election interference ops or how their internal chain of command will handle it.

In essence, the 30 days specified by EO 13848 in 1f is the time alloted to all the agencies to figure out all of the administration and implementation of the order, so that the playbook for following the EO will already exist for future elections.

I'm not a lawyer, so maybe I'm misreading something, but it seems clear to me that the 45 day periods are talking about an "assessment" and a "report", but the 30 day period refers to "this order"

Frustratingly, Inauguration will always be fewer than 90 days after an election, which suggests that the EO assumes the presidential election wasn't interfered with enough to change the outcome.

Note, the timelines are all set up as deadlines (eg "within 45 days" or "no later than") so there's nothing to say the agencies can't do those things earlier to get something done prior to Inauguration. In any case, I'd expect both the assessment and report to be very confidential and I doubt we would ever get to see it.

Here's a link to the full Executive Order

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-13848-imposing-certain-sanctions-the-event-foreign-interference-united

And here are the relevant sections:

Section 1. (a) Not later than 45 days after the conclusion of a United States election, the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of any other appropriate executive departments and agencies (agencies), shall conduct an assessment of any information indicating that a foreign government, or any person acting as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign government, has acted with the intent or purpose of interfering in that election.

(b) Within 45 days of receiving the assessment and information described in section 1(a) of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the heads of any other appropriate agencies and, as appropriate, State and local officials, shall deliver to the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Defense a report evaluating, with respect to the United States election that is the subject of the assessment described in section 1(a):

(i) the extent to which any foreign interference that targeted election infrastructure materially affected the security or integrity of that infrastructure, the tabulation of votes, or the timely transmission of election results; and

(ii) if any foreign interference involved activities targeting the infrastructure of, or pertaining to, a political organization, campaign, or candidate, the extent to which such activities materially affected the security or integrity of that infrastructure, including by unauthorized access to, disclosure or threatened disclosure of, or alteration or falsification of, information or data.

The report shall identify any material issues of fact with respect to these matters that the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security are unable to evaluate or reach agreement on at the time the report is submitted. The report shall also include updates and recommendations, when appropriate, regarding remedial actions to be taken by the United States Government, other than the sanctions described in sections 2 and 3 of this order

(f) Not later than 30 days following the date of this order, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence shall develop a framework for the process that will be used to carry out their respective responsibilities pursuant to this order. The framework, which may be classified in whole or in part, shall focus on ensuring that agencies fulfill their responsibilities pursuant to this order in a manner that maintains methodological consistency; protects law enforcement or other sensitive information and intelligence sources and methods; maintains an appropriate separation between intelligence functions and policy and legal judgments; ensures that efforts to protect electoral processes and institutions are insulated from political bias; and respects the principles of free speech and open debate.

Mention of EO in trump’s retweeted thread

The tweet itself

I’ve seen it mentioned a few times in threads that talk about how trump still has a chance to overturn the election. I’ve glanced the order but have a hard time understanding what he can actually do to use it to turn the election. The little bit that I have seen it talked about is from the “right” saying it’s the “kraken” and the “left” saying it going to fizzle to nothing. Also, it looks like trump retweeted not long after Barr’s resignation that the acting AG wrote an essay about foreign interference in the election seemingly (in my opinion) foreshadowing the possible use of the order.