Trump downplays cyberattack
Suggests China may to be blame after officials speak out
WASHINGTON — Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyberattack against the United States and tried to minimized its impact.
In his first comments on the breach, Trump derided the focus on the Kremlin and downplayed the intrusions, which the nation’s cybersecurity agency has warned posed a “grave” risk to government and private networks.
“The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control,” Trump tweeted. He also claimed the media are “petrified” of “discussing the possibility that itmaybe China (it may!).”
There is no evidence to suggest that is the case. Secretary of State Mike Pompeosaid late Friday that Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the cyberattack against theUnited States.
“This was a very significant effort and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that itwas the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Pompeos aid in the interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin.
Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused Russia of being “the main actor” in the hack, butwere told at the last minute to stand down, according to one U.S. official familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
It is not clear whether Pompeo got that message before his interview, but officials are nows crambling to figure out how to square the disparate accounts. The White House did not immediately respondto questions about the statement or the basis of Trump’s claims. The State Department also did not respondto questions about Pompeo’s remarks.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has refused to blame Russia for well-documented hostilities, includ-
ing its interference in the 2016 election to help him get elected. He blamed Barack Obama for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, has endorsed allowing Russia to return to the G-7 group of nations and has never taken the country to task for allegedly putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Pompeo said the government was still “unpacking” the cyberattack and someof it would likely remain classified.
“But suffice it to say there was a significant effort touse a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of U.S. government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world aswell,” he said.
Though Pompeo was the first Trump administration official to publicly blame Russia for the attacks, cybersecurity experts and other U.S. officials have been clear over the past week that the operation appears to be the work of Russia. There has been no credible suggestion that any other country — including China — is responsible.
Democrats in Congress who have received classified briefings have also affirmed publicly that Russia, which in 2014 hacked the State Department and interfered through hacking in the 2016 presidential election, was behind it.
It’s not clear exactly what the hackers were seeking, but experts say it could include nuclear secrets, blueprints for advanced weaponry, COVID-19 vaccine-related research and information for dossiers on government and industry leaders.
Russia has said it had “nothing to do” with the hacking.
While Trump downplayed the impact of the hacks, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has said it compromised federal agencies as well as “critical infrastructure.” Homeland Security, the agency’s parent department, defines such infrastructure as any “vital” assets to the U.S. or its economy, a broad category that could include power plants and financial institutions.
Trump had been silent on the attacks before Saturday
Deputy White Hous press secretary Brian Morgenstern on Friday told reporters that national secu rity adviser Robert O’Brien had sometimes been leading multiple daily meetings with the FBI, the Department o Homeland Security and th intelligence agencies, look ing for ways tomitigate th hack.
“Rest assuredw e have th best and brightest working hard on it each and every single day,” he said.
The Democratic leader of four House committee given classified briefings by the administration on th hack have complained tha they “were left with mor questions than answers.”
“Administration official were unwilling to share th full scope of the breach and identities of the victims, they said.
Pompeo, in the interview with Levin, said Russia wa onthe list of “folks that wan to undermine our way o life, our republic, our basi democratic principles. . You see the news of the day with respect to their effort in the cyberspace. We’v seen this for an awfully long time, using asymmet ric capabilities to try andpu themselves in a placewher they can impose costs on th United States.”
What makes this hacking campaign so extraordinary is its scale: 18,000 organi zations were infected from March to June by maliciou code that piggybacked on popular network- man agement software from an Austin, Texas, company called SolarWinds.
It’s going to take month to kick elite hackers ou of the U.S. govern men networks.