House Dem: Obama made ‘serious mistake’ on Russia
Rep. Adam Schiff, DCalif., and President Donald Trump don’t agree on much about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, but they agree on this: Former President Barack Obama should have done more to stop Moscow from intervening.
Obama made a “very serious mistake” in not doing more about Russia’s intervention in the presidential election campaign, Schiff said Sunday.
“The administration needed to call out Russia earlier, and needed to act to deter and punish Russia earlier,” Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I think the Obama administration should have done more when it became clear that not only was Russia intervening, but it was being directed at the highest levels of the Kremlin,” he said.
Obama did announce in December a series of sanctions against Russia for its attempts to influence the November election, including expelling 35 suspected intelligence operatives from the U.S.
Schiff said the sanctions should have come sooner and been stronger. Obama also should have let the voters know about Russia’s actions while the campaign was still under way, he said. “What I urged at the time was he should have spoken out to the American people and said, ‘This is what Russia is doing,’ ” Schiff said.
Trump also questioned why Obama administration officials took no action on Russia before the election. “Since the Obama administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action?” he said in a Twitter posting.
Appearing Sunday on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends,” Trump said that if Obama had the information about Russian meddling, “why didn’t he do something about it? He should have done something about it. But you don’t read that. It’s quite sad.”
During the campaign, Trump cast doubts on reports of Russian intervention, at one point suggesting the hacking could be the work of China, or of “someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC’s “This Week” that instead of complaining about Obama, Trump should back the bill passed by the Senate to impose greater sanctions on Russia and limit the president’s ability to unilaterally lift them.