Washington: US President Barack Obama (pictured) has promised the US will retaliate against Russia for its suspected meddling in America’s election process, an accusation the Kremlin vehemently denied.
As the White House grew more bullish about suggesting President Vladimir Putin was personally involved, Obama said he’d spoken directly to Putin about his concerns about Russian meddling. He said whenever a foreign government tries to interfere in US elections, the nation must take action “and we will at a time and place of our own choosing.”
“We have been working hard to make sure that what we do is proportional, that what we do is meaningful,” Obama said in an NPR News interview aired yesterday.
Obama’s remarks were the clearest indication that whatever response the US is planning, it hasn’t happened yet. The White House has insisted for months that when the US did retaliate, it might not be made public, a position that has created uncertainty about strength and timing of any response.
White House officials said it was “fact” that Russian hacking helped Donald Trump’s campaign against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. White House press secretary Josh Earnest also assailed Trump himself over his refusal to acknowledge the hacking and his attacks on the US intelligence community.
The tough talk from the White House fell flat in Moscow, where Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the accusations baseless and inappropriate.
“They should either stop talking about that, or produce some proof at last,” Peskov told reporters yesterday. “Otherwise it all begins to look unseemly.”
There has been no specific, persuasive evidence shared publicly about the extent of Putin’s role or knowledge of hackings. That lack of proof undercuts Democrats’ strategy to portray Putin’s involvement as irrefutable evidence of a directed Russian government plot to undermine America’s democratic system.
But the White House pointed to a US intelligence assessment released publicly in October that asserted “only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorised these activities.” And Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, connected the dots further, saying yesterday Putin was responsible for Russian government’s actions.
“I don’t think things happen in Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it,” he said.
Trump struck back yesterday, with a Twitter post mockingly asking “are we talking about the same cyberattack” in which embarrassing information about Democratic National Committee was also revealed. His tweet invoked emailed stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and later released publicly in hacking that has been linked to Russia.
In the NPR interview, Obama sough to contrast the current incident with “a traditional understanding that everybody’s trying to gather intelligence on everybody else.”
“One of the things we’re going to have to do over next decade,” he said, is find an international understanding on rules involving what has become “a new game.” Obama said US officials should not let “the inter-family argument between Americans” obscure need for people to “stand together” on this issue.
“My view is this is not a partisan issue,” the president said, exhorting people to “take it out of election season and move it into governing season.”
The explosive accusation suggests Putin, as having directly undermined US democracy. US officials have not contended, however, that Trump would have been defeated by Clinton if not for Russia’s assistance. Nor has there has been any indication of tampering with the vote-counting.
The dispute over Russia’s role has also fueled public spat between Obama’s White House and Trump’s team that is threatening to spoil the delicate truce that Obama and Trump have forged since Election Day to smooth the billionaire businessman’s move to the White House in little over a month.
