Obama promises US retaliation against Russian hacking

Barack Obama on Thursday said the United States would retaliate against Russian hacking after the White House accused Vladimir Putin of direct involvement in cyberattacks designed to influence the US election.

The outgoing US president's remarks dramatically upped the stakes in a dispute between the world's leading nuclear powers over interference that may have swayed last month's tight election in which Republican billionaire Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action," Obama told NPR radio.

"And we will, at a time and place of our own choosing."

Pointing the finger at the Russian president over meddling in the election also puts the White House on a collision course with Trump, who has become increasingly isolated in questioning Russian involvement in hacks of Democratic Party emails that appeared to have slowed the momentum of Clinton's campaign.

Obama is expected to be peppered with questions about the dispute and any subsequent action when he holds a news conference Friday at 2:15 pm (1915 GMT) before leaving for a vacation in Hawaii.

"I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it," one of his top advisers, Ben Rhodes, said earlier Thursday.

"Everything we know about how Russia operates and how Putin controls that government would suggest that, again, when you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government," he told MSNBC television.

"And ultimately, Vladimir Putin is the official responsible for the actions of the Russian government."

- 'Not a joke' -

White House spokesman Josh Earnest echoed his comments, saying the decision by US intelligence agencies in October to blame "Russia's senior-most officials" was not meant to be "particularly subtle."

Trump caused outrage in July by suggesting that Russia find 30,000 missing emails related to Clinton's use of a private server when she was secretary of state. Surrogates dismissed it as a joke, but he repeated his call on Twitter.

"I don't think anybody at the White House thinks it's funny that an adversary of the United States engaged in malicious cyber activity to destabilize our democracy. That's not a joke," Earnest said on Thursday.

"Mr Trump obviously knew that Russia was engaged in malicious cyber activity that was helping him and hurting Secretary Clinton's campaign," he added.

Asked if the White House believes Russia successfully rigged the election,however, he told reporters that there were a "variety of potential explanations, and that's more of a question for analysts of politics than it is for analysts of intelligence."

Trump, who blasted as "ridiculous" a reported CIA assessment that Russia was trying to help him win, has continued to question Russian involvement in hacks of damaging Democratic Party emails.

He used a campaign-style victory rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday to hit out against Earnest, calling him "this foolish guy" and questioning whether he was talking to Obama to boos from the crowd.

"Having the right press secretary is so important because he is so bad the way he delivers the message," said the president-elect, who has yet to appoint one for his own incoming administration.

- 'Ridiculous nonsense' -

"If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?" Trump tweeted earlier on Thursday.

The 70-year-old billionaire now appears increasingly isolated.

The assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Russia was involved has been accepted throughout government and by top Republican Senators.

On Wednesday, senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was informed by the FBI in August that his own campaign had been hacked.

"My goal is to put on President Trump's desk crippling sanctions against Russia," he said. "They need to pay a price."

Former CIA director Michael Hayden called Trump "the only prominent American that has not yet conceded that the Russians conducted a massive covert influence campaign against the United States."

A Kremlin spokesman on Thursday rejected the allegations of Putin's involvement as "ridiculous nonsense."

As for Trump's assertion that no one addressed the issue before the election, Obama has repeatedly said both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee were apprised of the hacking and the Russian threat well before November 8.

In Congress, senior legislators are demanding a broad investigation and declassification of at least some of the secret CIA and FBI reports.

'Putin turned Russia election hacks in Trump's favour'

Reuters reports: Russian president Vladimir Putin supervised his intelligence agencies' hacking of the US presidential election and turned it from a general attempt to discredit American democracy to an effort to help Donald Trump, three US officials said on Thursday.

US intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia tried to influence the election by hacking people and institutions, including Democratic Party bodies, has angered President-elect Trump, who says he won the 8 November vote fairly. Russian officials have denied accusations of interference in the US. election.

Separately, a senior White House official said on Thursday that Putin was likely to have been aware of the cyber attacks but he fell short of accusing the Russian president.

"I don't think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it," Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser, told MSNBC. "When you're talking about a significant cyber intrusion like this, we're talking about the highest levels of government."

The US officials - who have knowledge of intelligence information on the matter - said on the condition of anonymity that the hacking of US political groups and figures had a more general focus at first.

"This began merely as an effort to show that American democracy is no more credible than Putin's version is," one of the officials said.

"It gradually evolved from that to publicising (Hillary) Clinton's shortcomings and ignoring the products of hacking Republican institutions, which the Russians also did," the official said.

By the fall, the official said, it became an effort to help Trump's campaign because "Putin believed he would be much friendlier to Russia, especially on the matter of economic sanctions" than Democratic rival Clinton.

Democratic president Barack Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio that the United States will take action against Russia.

"I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections ... we need to take action and we will," he said according to excerpts of the Thursday interview released by NPR.

"At a time and a place of our own choosing. Some of it may be ... explicit and publicized; some of it may not be. ... Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it," Obama said.

NBC reported earlier that US intelligence officials have "a high level of confidence" Putin was personally involved in the Russian cyber campaign against the United States.

Hacked emails of Democratic operatives and Clinton aides were leaked during the presidential campaign, and at times dominated the news agenda. The US officials said Russia also hacked Republicans but did little to nothing with the information they found.

PUTIN ROLE?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state TV channel Rossiya-24 that he was "dumbstruck" by the NBC report of Putin's alleged involvement.

"I think this is just silly, and the futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious," he said.

Trump, who takes office on 20 January, has brushed off reports of Russian hacking of US political institutions.

"If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?" Trump wrote in a post on Twitter on Thursday.

In fact, the US government did formally accuse Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against US political organizations in October - one month ahead of the election.

Obama last week ordered a review by the US intelligence agencies about foreign interference in the 2016 election.

Asked on Thursday about the hacks, secretary of state John Kerry described how Obama had been considering the evidence ahead of the October announcement.

"The president made the decision based on the input that was carefully, carefully vetted by the intelligence community ... that he did have an obligation to go out to the country and give a warning. And he did so," Kerry said at a news briefing.

The three US officials who spoke to Reuters said the fact that Putin oversaw a hacking operation was not surprising and is standard operating procedure in Russia.

"If anything, given his background as a KGB officer, Putin has a much tighter grip on all Russian intelligence operations, civilian and military, foreign and domestic, than any democratic leader does," one official said.

The reports of Russian hacking have raised concerns among both political parties in Congress, with top Republicans breaking with Trump to call for closer scrutiny.

Some Republican lawmakers have also questioned Trump's pick for Secretary of State, Exxon Mobil Corp chief executive Rex Tillerson, who has close business ties to the Russian government.

Source: AFP