WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has ordered a full review of foreign-based digital attacks that U.S. intelligence agencies say were aimed at influencing this year’s presidential election, a top White House official said Friday.
The disclosure came after President-elect Donald Trump again dismissed a blunt U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded senior Russian authorities had authorized the digital theft of emails from Democratic Party officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager during the campaign.
Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, raising concerns among intelligence experts that he is ignoring potential threats to U.S. national security.
Officials said the cyberattacks were the first known attempt to try to interfere with a U.S. election to discredit American democracy or a specific candidate, a clear escalation of traditional cyberespionage.
“We may be crossing into a new threshold and it’s incumbent upon us to take stock of that,” said Lisa Monaco, White House counterterrorism and Homeland Security adviser.
U.S. officials will be “very attentive to not disclosing sources and methods that may impede our ability to identify and attribute malicious actors in the future,” said Monaco, who disclosed the intelligence review at a breakfast arranged by the Christian Science Monitor.
The classified inquiry will focus on what happened and “lessons learned,” Monaco said, and will be completed before Obama leaves office on Jan. 20.
It will be shared with “a range of stakeholders,” she said, including members of Congress, but she did not commit to making it public.
Trump has repeatedly derided claims that Russian authorities played a role in the hacks and the subsequent release of thousands of emails from Democratic National Committee staff accounts and the private account of John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s campaign.
In an interview with Time magazine published this week, Trump said he didn’t believe Putin’s government hacked the Democrats’ computers to help his candidacy.
The hacking, he said, “could be Russia. It could be China. And it could be some guy in New Jersey.”
Russia’s government has denied any role in the hacks or in trying to subvert the U.S. election.