Obama Orders ‘Deep Dive’ Into Election Hacking

The White House has requested the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to present a full review of the cyber and espionage activity aimed at United States elections, going back to 2008.

“This is something the president wants done under his watch,” Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz told reporters at the White House recently.

The probe will not be specifically focused on Russia. For example, experts have blamed China for election hacks in 2008 against the Obama and McCain campaigns. However, the intelligence community’s assertion that Kremlin-backed actors led hacking activities against the most recent election would be included in the review.

“This will be a deep dive,” Schultz said. But he added that the effort was “not an effort to challenge the outcome of the election” and would not call into question the election results. “This will be a challenge for the next administration.”

The announcement comes after lawmakers across party lines called for more information to be made public about Kremlin-backed activities aimed at destabilising the United States presidential election.

John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Lindsey Graham, Charles E. Schumer, Senate Democratic Leader-elect, and Jack Reed, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services said that they would press ahead with hearings. 

“This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country. We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security,” they wrote in a statement.

“Congress’s national security committees have worked diligently to address the complex challenge of cybersecurity, but recent events show that more must be done.  While protecting classified material, we have an obligation to inform the public about recent cyberattacks that have cut to the heart of our free society. Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks.

Democrats and independents on the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Ron Wyden, recently sent a letter to the president, saying, “We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.”

In a separate statement, Sen. Mark Warner, said, “Interference in America’s democracy and our electoral process by any outside power is unacceptable. I commend the President for undertaking a comprehensive review of meddling in the election by Russia. Similarly, I strongly believe Congress must play a proactive role in this investigation.”

And in an implicit reply to president-elect Donald Trump, who once again rejected the consensus view that Russia meddled in the election he won, Warner added, “As the incoming Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I know that one of the primary missions of the intelligence professionals in this country is to render their best professional judgment, regardless of political considerations.”

In the House of Represenetaives, Democrats pushed legislation that called for a formal probe. The effort was led by Rep. Adam Schiff,  “We are deeply concerned by Russian efforts to undermine, interfere with and even influence the outcome of our recent election,” Schiff said in a letter.

Schultz said that the review was unrelated to Congressional pressure. “We’ve received requests from Congress for briefings on this. We’ve been briefing them on this. We’re happy to go through the process to figure out” if more material can be declassified, he said.

Recently The Washington Post published a bombshell report stating that intelligence agencies had discovered the names of actual agents involved in the transfer of stolen emails to Wikileaks. 

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