The Obama administration on Thursday announced retaliatory measures in response to Russian hacking of U.S.
The Obama administration on Thursday announced retaliatory measures in response to Russian hacking of U.S. political institutions to boost the Trump campaign during the 2016 Presidential election, expelling 35 Russian government operatives and imposing sanctions on Russia’s intelligence services and several senior intelligence officials.
“All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions. In October, my Administration publicized our assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” Obama wrote in a statement. “These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government. Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year.”
“Such activities have consequences,” he noted.
In Thursday’s announcement, Obama laid out a number of actions ordered in response to the Moscow’s “aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. government.” The Kremlin has denied its involvement.
Obama sanctioned five entities — including the two Russian intelligence services, the GRU (military intelligence agency) and the FSB (civilian intelligence agency) — and three companies “that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations.” He also imposed sanctions on four high-level intelligence officials of the GRU: chief Igor Valentinovich Korobov and three deputies, Sergey Aleksandrovich Gizunov, Igor Olegovich Kostyukov and and Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev.
This sanctions come under an amended executive order, issued in the wake of the cyber attack against Sony Pictures, which now will “also allow for the imposition of sanctions on individuals and entities determined to be responsible for tampering, altering, or causing the misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI released a joint analysis report (JAR) with declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity.
“Previous JARs have not attributed malicious cyber activity to specific countries or threat actors. However, public attribution of these activities to RIS (Russian Intelligence Services) is supported by technical indicators from the U.S. Intelligence Community, DHS, FBI, the private sector, and other entities,” the report stated.
A joint DHS-ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence)-FBI statement on Thursday noted that “this activity by Russian intelligence services is part of a decade-long campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. government and its citizens.”
And State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner wrote in a statement that its actions declaring 35 Russian officials “persona non grata” and closing two compounds in the United States owned by the Russian government come as part part of a “comprehensive response to Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and to a pattern of harassment of our diplomats overseas that has increased over the last four years, including a significant increase in the last 12 months.”
“This harassment has involved arbitrary police stops, physical assault, and the broadcast on State TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk,” Toner wrote. “In addition, the Russian Government has impeded our diplomatic operations by, among other actions: forcing the closure of 28 American corners which hosted cultural programs and English-language teaching; blocking our efforts to begin the construction of a new, safer facility for our Consulate General in St. Petersburg; and rejecting requests to improve perimeter security at the current, outdated facility in St. Petersburg.”
In his announcement, Obama pointed out that the actions listed “are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities.”
“We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized,” Obama wrote.
Additionally, Congress will receive a report “in the coming days” about both Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and cyber activity related to previous election cycles, the president said.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan called the administration’s action on Thursday “overdue” given that Russia has “consistently sought to undermine” U.S. interests. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham issued a joint statement also calling the retaliatory measures “long overdue.”
“But ultimately, they are a small price for Russia to pay for its brazen attack on American democracy,” they wrote. “We intend to lead the effort in the new Congress to impose stronger sanctions on Russia.”
In October, the U.S. Intelligence Community, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, officially accused Russia of interfering with the U.S. election process. But this month, reports emerged that the FBI, CIA, and the Office of Director of National Intelligence agreed that Russia was behind the hacks into U.S. political institutions and political operatives in order to help elect Trump over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Asked on Wednesday about the plans to take action against Russia and Putin, Trump said that “we ought to get on with our lives” and made vague comments about computers.
“I think we ought to get on with our lives,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort as he stood next to boxing promoter Don King. “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind of security we need. But I have not spoken with the senators and I certainly will be over a period of time.”
Trump has repeatedly said he does not believe IC assessments that Russia was behind the hacking and leaks.
Earlier this month, Obama said that the U.S. would respond to Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign, telling NPR, “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action. And we will — at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”
Obama has also ordered the IC to conduct a full review of election hacking, to be delivered before he leaves office on January 20.
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @mweinger.
Source: Obama Retaliates Against Russians for Election Hacking | The Cipher Brief
