At the end of the day, everything in Washington, D.C., comes back
to one thing — politics.
That certainly seems to be the case with President Barack Obama’s
administration, which reportedly delayed retaliation against Russian
interference in the U.S. presidential election because Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was expected to win.
“They thought she was going to win, so they were willing to kick the
can down the road,” a U.S. official familiar with the Russian
hacking issue
told NBC News Thursday.
That plan didn’t work out.
President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, criticized Obama for now
— weeks after the election — promising to “take
action” against Russia “at a time and place of our own
choosing,” a move he suggests was inspired for political reasons.
And Trump is not the only one to criticize the weak response from
the Obama White House.
“I think it is a legitimate question, and I think given the stakes
at the national level the question deserves an answer,” retired Adm.
James Stavridis told NBC of the president’s wishy-washy approach to
Russia during the election. “In retrospect, it certainly seems as
though it was a mistake not to call the Russians sooner and respond
to them in a very forceful way.”
Over the weekend,
a secret CIA report leaked suggesting that Russia did, in fact,
interfere in the U.S. election — an analysis Trump swiftly deemed
“ridiculous.”
It is important to note, however, that, though the White House
failed to take any substantial action against Russia despite
knowledge of the hack, Obama did confront Russian President Vladimir
Putin about the issue at the G-20 summit in China, telling the
leader he would face unspecified consequences if the interference
continued.
In addition, on Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
issued a joint statement warning of the Russian hacks. The U.S.
officials said the interference, intended to undermine the integrity
of the electoral system, could have been carried out only with
approval from “Russia’s senior most” leaders.
Clinton’s campaign also raised concerns about the specter of a
Russian hack. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said in July
that it was “troubling”
to learn that Russia may have been responsible for the hacks into
the Democratic National Committee.