Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Russia receives new sanctions
President expels 35, orders sanctions afteralleged hacking
Obama retaliates in response to intelligence reports of election interference.
President Barack Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian operatives, closed two estates purportedly used by Russian spies and slapped sanctions on Russia’s two largest intelligence organizations and other entities Thursday for their alleged role in what the White House says was a Kremlin-directed effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential race.
The sweeping action follows an intense review of what Obama called “aggressive harassment” of U.S. diplomats in Moscow and “cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election,” a hacking campaign that U.S. officials code-named “Grizzly Steppe.”
In the most dramatic move, the State Department declared 35 intelligence operatives at the Russian Embassy in Washington and the Russian Consulate in San Francisco as persona non grata. They were given 72 hours to leave the country with their families for “acting in a manner inconsistent with their diplomatic status.”
The Obama administration also said it would block access after noon on Friday to two properties owned by the Russian government — a 45-acre estate along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and 14-acre compound in Long Island, N.Y. — that it said were used by Russian personnel for gathering intelligence. The broad penalties, three weeks before Obama hands over the White House to Donald Trump, came amid rising tensions over President Vladimir Putin’s military operations in Syria and Ukraine.
“All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions,” Obama said in a statement.
“These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities,” Obama added. “We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized.”
Obama said the Russian effort was aimed at interfering with the U.S. election. He stopped short of endorsing FBI and CIA conclusions that the cyberattack was aimed, at least in part, at helping Trump win.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed conclusions from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security that senior Russian officials directed a campaign aimed at interfering with the fall election.
In a statement Thursday night, he made clear he is still not convinced.
“It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” he said. “Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the U.S. measures “ungrounded and illegal.” He said, “I can’t say what the response will be, but there is absolutely no alternative to the principle of reciprocity.”
In an acerbic statement, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the U.S. had been “humiliated by its own president” and his “hardly literate foreign policy team.”
“Not by international terrorists, not enemy armies. Washington’s own master slapped it on the face by maximally increasing the number of urgent things to be done by the next administration,” she said.
She said Russia would announce counter-measures “and a lot of other things” on Friday.
The State Department said it was expelling the 35 officials partly in response to harassment of U.S. diplomats in Russia over the last four years, including the tackling of a U.S. Embassy official by a Russian security guard that was posted on YouTube in June.
“This harassment has involved arbitrary police stops, physical assault, and the broadcast on State TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk,” Mark Toner, the State Department spokesman, said.
The Kremlin has also closed 28 American cultural education centers in Russia and blocked the construction of a new consular office in St. Petersburg. “Such behavior is unacceptable,” Toner said.
Obama used a newly amended executive order that for the first time authorizes U.S. action in response to attempted “interfering with or undermining” a U.S. election, an expansion of previous authority.
He ordered sanctions against Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, known as the GRU, and the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB.
Officials said both took part in the hacking and leaking of tens of thousands of emails and other material from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, among other targets. The stolen digital trove was posted on WikiLeaks and other websites.
The administration also sanctioned four senior GRU officers and three Russian companies that provided material support for its cyber-operations.
Also sanctioned were two notorious Russian hackers, Yevgeny Bogachev and Alexsey Belan, who U.S. officials said had stolen more than $100 million by breaking into the computers of U.S. banks, universities and online retailers.
Obama’s actions drew broad support in Congress, though with partisan overtones.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the measures “overdue.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., the incoming Senate minority leader, applauded the decision to “punch back against Russia,” but he worried about how Trump may react.