Obama administration strikes back at Putin regime for interfering in 2016 U.S. elections

It’s a start:

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma struck back at Rus­sia on Thurs­day for its efforts to influ­ence the 2016 elec­tion, eject­ing 35 sus­pect­ed Russ­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tives from the Unit­ed States and impos­ing sanc­tions on Russia’s two lead­ing intel­li­gence services.

The admin­is­tra­tion also penal­ized four top offi­cers of one of those ser­vices, the pow­er­ful mil­i­tary intel­li­gence unit known as the G.R.U. Intel­li­gence agen­cies have con­clud­ed that the G.R.U. ordered the attacks on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee and oth­er polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions, with the approval of the Krem­lin, and ulti­mate­ly enabled the pub­li­ca­tion of the emails it harvested.

We’re very glad to see Pres­i­dent Oba­ma tak­ing deci­sive action to hold Vladimir Putin’s cor­rupt regime account­able for its unprece­dent­ed, out­ra­geous pro-Trump med­dling in our recent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. We applaud these mea­sures and would like to see fur­ther non-covert steps tak­en as well.

Cour­tesy of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, here are some mate­ri­als that offer addi­tion­al con­text on the admin­is­tra­tion’s actions:

• State­ment by the President
• Exec­u­tive Order and Let­ter from the President 
  • Tak­ing Addi­tion­al Steps to Address the Nation­al Emer­gency with Respect to Sig­nif­i­cant Mali­cious Cyber-Enabled Activities
• White House Fact Sheet
• Depart­ment of State Actions in Response to Russ­ian Harassment
• Trea­sury Sanc­tions Two Indi­vid­u­als for Mali­cious Cyber Enabled Activity
• Joint DHS, ODNI, FBI State­ment on Russ­ian Mali­cious Cyber Activity
• DHS and FBI – Joint Analy­sis Report (Griz­zly Steppe – Russ­ian Mali­cious Cyber Activity)

The orig­i­nal joint state­ment from the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty and the Office of the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence on U.S. elec­tion secu­ri­ty, from Octo­ber 7, 2016, is also avail­able here.

Putin’s regime, which has a stran­gle­hold on the gov­ern­ment of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, has respond­ed rather pre­dictably by vow­ing to retal­i­ate… although Putin’s mouth­pieces have hint­ed Putin will wait to decide how to respond until after Don­ald Trump is installed as Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s successor.

Trump is the man Putin and his regime want­ed in the White House, and now that they’re on the verge of get­ting what they want­ed, they’re reduced to hurl­ing insults at Barack Oba­ma until they can see what kind of for­eign pol­i­cy pos­ture the unpre­dictable and unpre­pared Trump will actu­al­ly adopt.

As The New York Times edi­to­r­i­al board says, these actions should have been ordered soon­er, but bet­ter late than nev­er. A fur­ther response is needed.

Mr. Oba­ma should have retal­i­at­ed against this treat­ment a long time ago; still, the expul­sion adds to the sever­i­ty of the Amer­i­can response and direct­ly affects Russ­ian cit­i­zens, where­as the trav­el bans and asset freezes imposed by the sanc­tions may not.

Russ­ian intel­li­gence offi­cials rarely trav­el to the Unit­ed States or stash their assets here. Sanc­tions imposed by the Unit­ed States and Europe over Russia’s annex­a­tion of Crimea and the war in Ukraine have been in place for two years, yet it is debat­able how much effect they have had on Mr. Putin. There is thus a legit­i­mate ques­tion about whether Mr. Obama’s penal­ties will be sufficient.

For­tu­nate­ly, sen­a­tors from both par­ties are already call­ing for fol­low-up sanc­tions.

“The exec­u­tive branch has act­ed, but it is imper­a­tive the leg­isla­tive branch now pick up the ball and move it for­ward. Con­gres­sion­al sanc­tions can com­ple­ment and strength­en these new exec­u­tive sanc­tions,” said Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin of Maryland.

Repub­li­cans Lind­sey Gra­ham and John McCain, who are no friends of the Krem­lin, also said they will push for Con­gress to act once the 115th Con­gress convenes.