Our view: As Mueller fights Russians, Trump is MIA
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s success Friday winning indictments against 13 Russians and three government-linked organizations trying to influence the 2016 presidential election offers some solace that at least a corner of the U.S. government is fighting back against Kremlin aggression.
If only President Trump would finally acknowledge that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a coordinated attack on the American democratic process, he might be able to lead efforts to fight back.
And the attack is not over. The Russians have every intention of launching a new wave of disinformation and cyber assaults to muck up midterm elections this fall, intelligence chiefs told Congress. Their sights are set on the 2020 presidential election as well.
Moscow uses Internet trolls and automated social media accounts known as bots to create inflammatory posts to sow political discord. Just last week, Russian-linked bots promoted pro-gun messages in the wake of a high school shooting in Florida.
This is an ongoing war and Trump, whose mantra so often has been a dedication to protecting the American people, needs to protect them from this onslaught. “The United States is under attack,” National Intelligence Director Dan Coats told the Senate on Tuesday. For starters:
Trump needs to acknowledge the Kremlin threat and use his bully pulpit to lead a national response. Instead, a barrage of presidential tweets on Sunday took aim at domestic political opponents rather than overseas enemies.
An interagency office with an antiinterference czar should be created to coordinate efforts across various intelligence offices. “There’s no single agency, quote, ‘in charge,’ ” Coats conceded last week.
Homeland Security and the FBI must coordinate with elections offices across the nation to bolster computer defenses to guard against the kind of Russian hacking that was attempted on voting systems of 21 states in 2016.
There must be a cost for assaulting American democracy. A nearly unanimous Congress enacted the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act last year. Trump grudgingly signed it, but no sanctions have been levied against entities doing major business with Russia’s defense and intelligence agencies. This has to change.
The new battleground in this fight is social media. FBI Director Christopher Wray offered a tepid response last week about progress in coordinating defensive efforts with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. They should be required to identify sources of funding for political advertisements, much like rules for print and electronic media. Moreover, there should be a U.S. government doctrine for combating foreign interference through social media. Coats said no specific written policy is in place.
Mueller’s indictments of the Russians and the organizations coordinating their efforts are a strong start at fulfilling his mandate to investigate foreign sabotage of our elections. But he is only one warrior. The country needs a field marshal in the White House.