Barack Obama has warned that the US will retaliate for Russian cyberattacks during the presidential election. According to extracts of an interview due to air on National Public Radio on Friday morning, the US president said he was waiting for a final report he has ordered into a range of Russian hacking attacks, but promised there would be a response. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action,” Obama said. “And we will – at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be.” The CIA has judged that the Russian cyber attacks, including the hacking of emails from the Democratic National Committee, were intended to influence the election in Donald Trump’s favour. The FBI agrees that there was Russian hacking but has not as yet concluded it was intended to favour the Republican contender. Senators from both parties have called for a congressional enquiry, while Trump himself has rejected the reports and his office has derided the CIA.
The president-elect weighed in on Twitter to ask: “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” In fact, the intelligence community had issued its statement on 7 October, a full month before polling day.
Obama said he would reserve judgment on Moscow’s intentions pending a final report but he said the impact of the intervention was clear. The debate over motivation, he said “does not in any way, I think, detract from the basic point that everyone during the election perceived accurately – that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign”.
He added: “There’s no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were Hillary’s emails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC.” The president did not attempt to gauge the full impact of the intervention, but insisted it had had an effect.
Full Article: Obama promises retaliation against Russia over hacking during US election | The Guardian.