President Obama has ordered the U.S. intelligence association to conduct a “full review” of the cyberattacks during the 2016 acclamation and to adapt a address on the accountable — including to Congress — afore he leaves office, White House citizenry aegis adviser Lisa Monaco said Thursday.
“We may accept beyond into a new threshold,” Monaco said at a breakfast affair with reporters, apropos to the “malicious” election-related cyberattacks, which U.S. intelligence admiral accept said about they are “confident” were directed by the Russian government. “And it’s bounden aloft us to yield a banal of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to accept what this agency and what has happened and to admit acquaint learned.”
Deputy White House columnist secretary Eric Schultz afterwards told reporters that Obama ordered the analysis beforehand this week, anecdotic it as a “deep dive” by U.S. intelligence agencies — alive with the FBI and the Accompaniment Department — into awful cyberattacks that the U.S. intelligence association accept already bent was directed at the “highest levels” of the Russian government.
(Schultz conspicuously said Thursday that the U.S. intelligence association has “high confidence” in that conclusion. The intelligence association had ahead said it was “confident” about the Russian role.) He added that the analysis will aswell beset cyberprobing and “scanning” of accompaniment acclamation systems endure summer, as able-bodied as attending aback at an beforehand election-related cyberattack on the campaigns of Obama and Sen. John McCain in 2008, which U.S. admiral attributed to the Chinese government.
Schultz emphasized that the analysis is “not an accomplishment to claiming the outcome” of the 2016 presidential election. Still, he said, “it’s a huge priority. It’s a above antecedence for the president.”
Obama’s analysis could box in President-elect Donald Trump on an affair that has absolute implications for U.S.-Russia relations. Already the amount has prompted calls for added investigations by the Congress — including proposals to actualize a civic commission, blooming afterwards the one formed afterwards the 9/11 alarm attacks — to conduct a abounding accessible analysis of the subject.
In an account appear this week, President-elect Trump absolved the abstracts of the intelligence association on the Russian role in cyberattacks on the Democratic Civic Committee and added political organizations, adage at one point they could accept been committed by “some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
“I don’t accept they interfered,” said Trump in an account with Time, about the Russian role in meddling in the U.S. election. “That became a bedlam point, not a talking point, a bedlam point. … Why not get forth with Russia?” Trump added. “And they can advice us action ISIS, which is both cher in lives and chear in money. And they’re able and smart. It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I accept that it could accept been Russia, and it could accept been any one of abounding added people. Sources and even individuals.”
Despite calls by seven Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee for the Obama administering to declassify added advice about what it knows about the cyberattacks, Monaco did not accomplish to a accessible absolution of the intelligence community’s review, adage admiral had to be accurate not to absolution advice that would “disclose sources and methods.” But Schultz afterwards told reporters, “We’re traveling to accomplish accessible as abundant as we can.”
She as well did not acknowledge to a catechism about what acknowledgment the U.S. government may accept taken, or is still contemplating, in backfire for what it believes to be the Russian attacks. In her aperture comments to reporters, Monaco batten about about the cyberthreats adverse the country, abacus at one point that “we will act to assure our interests, as able-bodied as appoint costs” on awful cyber actors, including nation-states, that advance U.S. interests. She did not
Monaco’s comments came as chief Senate Republicans accept signaled they are able to adjustment investigations into the Russian role in the election. McCain, administrator of the Armed Forces Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs Senate subcommittees on adopted operations and terrorism, said this anniversary they intend to barrage their own probes of the affair and are planning a aldermanic cruise to Eastern Europe anon to aggregate added advice on the subject.
Graham’s analysis will be a across-the-board attending at aggressive Russian activities, including in Ukraine, but will cover analytical what role that country played in the election, an abettor said this week. The Washington Post quoted McCain as adage he is “working closely” with Senate Intelligence Committee armchair Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina on the issue.
GOP accepting of the Russian role was added able Thursday if Rep. Devin Nunes, the administrator of the House Intelligence Committee, appear a account added pointing the feel at Moscow — and blank Trump’s dismissive comments. “Russia’s cyber-attacks are no abruptness to the House Intelligence Committee, which has been carefully ecology Russia’s acerbity for years — as I’ve said abounding times, the Intelligent Committee has again bootless to ahead [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s adverse actions.” Nunes abhorrent the Obama administering for its antecedent adherence to “resetting” relations with Russia and its abortion to yield added bull activity adjoin the Kremlin in the past. “It appears, however, that afterwards eight years the administering has all of a sudden awoken to the threat,” Nunes said in the statement.
U.S. intelligence admiral accept said they accept able affirmation that Russian intelligence casework penetrated the computers of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Aldermanic Attack Committee, and added political organizations and political leaders, including John Podesta, Clinton’s attack chairman, whose emails were hacked. They accept said the after accessible absolution of those emails by WikiLeaks and added websites was constant with methods the Russian intelligence casework accept acclimated abroad in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.
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