Intel chief: Reprisals for Russia days away
WASHINGTON — New sanctions against Russia will likely be unveiled “within a week” and will include measures against the 13 Russians indicted last month in the special counsel’s probe of election meddling, the nation’s top intelligence official told senators Tuesday.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “very shortly will be bringing out a list of sanctions
on those individuals that had been complicit” in the cyber measures described in the charges announced by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office. He also said the list would go beyond those 13 names in the indictment.
Coats added that he didn’t know what other names would be on Mnuchin’s list, though the intelligence agencies had provided the Treasury Department with information on others.
Congress and the White House have been at odds over the presidential administration’s refusal so far to implement additional sanctions against Russian officials and entities. Last year, Congress near-unanimously passed a law stepping up mandatory sanctions against Russia’s defense, energy, and banking sectors, as well as intelligence, railways, and metals and mining industries. But the White House never officially designated the targets of those sanctions, concluding in January that the threat of sanctions was by itself enough of a “deterrent.”
Last month, Mnuchin said he would consider applying sanctions against the 13 Russians and three companies Mueller named in his indictment of participants in a Russian-organized online influence campaign to spread discord in the U.S. electorate before the 2016 election.
The indictment prompted a wave of partisan finger-pointing, as Republicans accused former President Barack Obama’s administration of having been too soft on Russia, while Democrats excoriated President Donald Trump’s administration for not taking decisive steps to punish or repudiate Moscow’s efforts to interfere in an American election.
“Why on earth hasn’t the administration found anyone to sanction?” Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committee member Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., asked Coats on Tuesday.
Democrats also pressed Coats to explain why Trump hadn’t authorized the intelligence community to do more to prevent Russian aggression. National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers told senators last week that the president has given him no new authority or capability for that ahead of the midterms.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked who should lead efforts to counter Russia with this year’s elections “right around the corner.”
The response is “in process,” and the White House is “actively engaged,” Coats said, adding it’s a “high priority” led by the offices of Thomas Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, and Rob Joyce, cybersecurity coordinator for the National Security Council.
Coats said during Tuesday’s hearing that he had personally discussed the intelligence community’s cyberthreat response with Trump since Rogers’ testimony and that Trump’s response had been: “I assume you’re doing your job, all of you … but if you need me to say, direct you to do it, do it.”
But when asked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to clarify his comments, Coats said his discussions with the president had been “relative to the cyber issue and the direction to go forward on cyber.”
“I did not understand it to be said in the context of Russian influence in the elections,” Coats said.
Neither the Trump administration nor any of the three congressional committees looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election has yet publicly released recommendations, legislation, or other policy instructions for how states ought to contend with the threat the intelligence community has warned Russia will pose to the 2018 midterm elections.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to release recommendations later this month.
Trump said Tuesday that he is not worried that Moscow will meddle in the upcoming midterm elections because the U.S. will take steps to prevent it.
“Whatever they do, we’ll counteract it very strongly,” the president said at a news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven at the White House.
So far, top intelligence officials have said, the U.S. has responded weakly to Russia’s disinformation campaign to sow discord in America and raise doubts about the integrity of the presidential election.
Trump, who has refrained from pointing a finger at Moscow, acknowledged that Russia interfered in the presidential election but said it had no impact on the U.S. vote tally.
“Certainly there was meddling and probably there was meddling from other countries and maybe other individuals,” he said.
Trump said his administration is conducting a study and will make strong suggestions on protecting the midterms and beyond.
“You have to be very vigilant,” Trump said. “And one of the things we’re learning it is always good — it’s old-fashioned — but it’s always good to have a paper backup system of voting. It’s called paper. Not highly complex computers. Paper. A lot of states are going to a paper backup.”
In the hearing last week, Rogers told Congress that he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin has determined
there’s “little price to pay” for meddling and therefore will continue to direct efforts to do so.
“Clearly what we have done hasn’t been enough,” Rogers said.
In Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., batted away questions Tuesday about accusations that he dramatically watered down a bipartisan appeal for states to step up election security in the face of Russian aggression during the 2016 election.
Denis McDonough, Obama’s last chief of staff, made the accusation Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, saying McConnell was single-handedly responsible for downgrading the language in a letter “asking the states to work with us” to better secure election systems in light of intelligence indicating that Russia was attempting to interfere in the election. McDonough also complained that lawmakers have shown a “stunning lack of urgency about this question” — especially top GOP leaders.
“The lack of urgency that we saw from the Republican leadership in 2016, we continue to see to this day today,” McDonough told NBC. “It’s beyond time for Congress to work with the administration, to work with the states, to ensure that our electoral systems are ready to go. This is not a game.”
McConnell laughed off the accusation Tuesday.
“This is the same old thing they’ve been saying for weeks,” he told reporters at a weekly briefing. “I’ve issued a statement on that a couple of weeks ago, and I’d be happy to send it to you again.”
There is no specific statement from a couple of weeks ago, according to McConnell’s top spokesman, Don Stewart. Instead, his office provides responses whenever reporters inquire about accusations like McDonough’s, he said.
Asked whether he wishes he’d handled the accusations
about Russian interference differently ahead of the 2016 elections, McConnell said, “No, I’m perfectly comfortable with the steps that were taken back then.”
In the hearing Tuesday, Coats and the senators also touched on the security clearance held by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and top adviser who recently lost his access to the nation’s deepest secrets.
Coats assured lawmakers that Kushner’s current access to secret information does not threaten U.S. national security.
Kushner had been cleared to see “top secret/sensitive compartmented information” level for more than a year, but White House Chief of Staff John Kelly downgraded his clearance because of a prolonged background check. Now, Kushner sees information only at the lower “secret” level, but not highly classified information, Coats said.
“He has a temporary security clearance as do several others” at the White House, Coats said. “Kelly has taken the position that we need to shorten that list. It’s in process right now. I don’t think this is a threat to our national security.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who questioned Coats, called the security clearance process “defective” and said he has written to FBI Director Christopher Wray and White House counsel Don McGahn seeking a full explanation of how clearances are issued. Coats said he would cooperate with that review.
Information for this article was contributed by Karoun Demirjian and Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post; by Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press; and by Nafeesa Syeed of Bloomberg News.