He said the response wasn’t over and the US could take further, covert action — a thinly veiled reference to a counterstrike in cyberspace the US has been considering.
Trump issued a statement saying it was “time for our country to move on to bigger and better things.” Yet in the face of newly public evidence, he suggested he was keeping an open mind.
“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,” Trump said.
As part of the punishment, the US also kicked out 35 Russian diplomats who the US said were actually intelligence operatives, and shut down a pair of Russian compounds, in New York and Maryland. The US said those actions were in response to Russia’s harassment of US diplomats, calling it part of a pattern of aggression that included the cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
It was the strongest action the Obama administration has taken to date to retaliate for a cyberattack, and more comprehensive than last year’s sanctions on North Korea after it hacked Sony Pictures Entertainment. The new penalties add to existing US sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which have impaired Russia’s economy but had limited impact on President Vladimir Putin’s behavior.
Russia, which denied the hacking allegations, called the penalties a clumsy yet aggressive attempt to “harm Russian-American ties.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would take into account the fact that Trump will soon replace Obama as it drafts retaliatory measures.
The day marked a low point for US relations with Russia, which have suffered during Obama’s years as he and Putin tussled over Ukraine, Edward Snowden and Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, took to Facebook to call the Obama administration “a group of foreign policy losers, angry and ignorant.”
