Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Senators call for action on Russia
They vow response to hackers, seek Trump officials’ help
WASHINGTON — Faced with new evidence that Russian hackers are targeting conservative U.S. research groups and the Senate’s own webpages, key lawmakers from both parties signaled Tuesday that they were ready to move forward with new sanctions legislation capable of crippling the Russian economy.
And in three separate hearings on Capitol Hill, senators prodded President Donald Trump’s administration to do more with its existing authorities to deter Russia and protect U.S. political infrastructure.
“Congress is going to act; you might as well know that,” Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., predicted in a meeting of the Banking Committee, which oversees sanctions law. “I’d rather it act in a way that has your insights about what would be helpful, but if you fail to provide insights, then we will provide you with a law that ultimately take place without your insights.”
Administration officials pushed back and argued that the current sanctions regime provided all the authority they need, and they dismissed concerns that Trump’s equivocation on questions of Russian interference had harmed their efforts.
“If you look at the wide range of activities that this administration has undertaken under the direction of the president, including the very significant sanctions that we have been able to launch, including the expulsion of 60 Russians out of our country, including the closing of Russian entities in the United States, what Russia sees is a United States that is very aggressively targeting malign activity,” Sigal Mandelker, a senior Treasury Department official, told the Senate Banking Committee.
The expulsions were part of a coordinated campaign by western allies to punish Russia for the nerve-gas poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter, not for election interference.
Congress and the Trump administration are both positioned to ratchet up pressure, said Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which holds jurisdiction over sanctions law.
“It’s not often that Congress acts together in such a strong manner, as marked by such near-unanimous votes” last year, he said. “But, then, Russia is a menace on so many different levels, today, that Congress can be compelled to act with a single voice to find solutions that will protect America and democratic values across the world.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the committee’s top Democrat, was more forceful, calling the latest denial by the Kremlin “nonsense” and insisting that Trump do the same.
“Our government — the president and Congress together — must right now send a more powerful and direct message to Putin and those within his circles: We know what you’re doing, it must stop, and if you continue, you and your government will pay a dear price,” he said.
Microsoft Corp. revealed Monday that it had detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian military intelligence unit formerly known as the GRU. The sites appeared meant to trick people into thinking they were clicking through links managed by the conservative Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute, but were secretly redirected to webpages created by the hackers to steal passwords and other credentials.
Both institutions have taken aim at Russian corruption, and on Tuesday the Hudson Institute said in a statement that it was not the first time an authoritarian regime had targeted its work, nor did it expect it to be the last. Microsoft also found websites imitating the U.S. Senate, but not specific Senate offices or political campaigns.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, also announced Tuesday that the company is offering free cybersecurity protection to all U.S. political candidates, campaigns and other political organizations, at least so long as they’re already using Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity software. Facebook and Google have also promoted similar tools to combat campaign interference.
Elsewhere in the Senate on Tuesday, the Foreign Relations Committee had begun its own examination of U.S.-Russia relations, with senators grilling other State Department and Treasury Department officials. And later Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to take testimony from law enforcement and intelligence officials on cyber threats to the country’s critical infrastructure.
In the Foreign Relations Committee, senators were clearly frustrated with what they said was a lack of progress in curbing Russian behavior.
“Why, given all the things we are doing are we not making better progress?” asked Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. “I think sanctions are necessary,” he continued, but “it’s obviously not working the way we’d like. What would be more effective?”
A. Wess Mitchell, an assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, replied that “the chilling effect on the Russian economy has been significant and measurable.”