Donald J. Trump doesn’t believe the findings of the CIA and other intelligence officials that Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election.
I’ll presume, therefore, that he won’t take any action against them.
But here’s the thing, dear reader: We have a president on duty who does believe the CIA analysis, who has expressed outrage at the idea of foreign intervention in our electoral process — and who has vowed that he will act “in our own time” to retaliate against the hacking nation.
President Obama is in office until Jan. 20. It is sounding increasingly likely that he’ll do something to punish the Russians for what the CIA and others have said they’ve done. The specifics of what they did remain unclear, but the president’s longtime adversary, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, also appears complicit in what has transpired.
My guess would be that Obama will act in ways that might be difficult to undo. Trade sanctions? Diplomatic pressure? Retaliatory hacking of Russian cyber activity?
Obama said on National Public Radio this morning that some of the options being considered would be public and would be reported; other options might be done in secret. That’s the beauty — if you want to call it such — of being in charge of a vast intelligence network that can do these things undercover, out of sight.
The Russians need to know that what they did cannot be tolerated by any government, let alone by the United States of America.
If the new president is going to dismiss the fact-based information gathered by the CIA, then it falls on the current president to act while he still has the stroke to do so.
Go for it, Mr. President!