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Name And Shame? Obama Points To Russia On DNC Email Hacking


obPresident Barack Obama’s decision to identify Russia as almost certainly the culprit in hacking the Democratic National Committee and releasing politically embarrassing emails fits his administration’s new penchant for openly blaming foreign governments for such break-ins.

Even as the U.S. continues to secretly hack its own adversaries, Obama is raising the stakes for countries caught behind the keyboards engaging in cyber espionage, including even major powers like Russia and China.

The president discussed the incident after WikiLeaks published on its website last week more than 19,000 internal emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee earlier this year. The emails showed DNC staffers actively supporting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton when they were publicly promising to remain neutral during the primary elections between Clinton and rival candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned over the disclosures, which disrupted this week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Obama traditionally avoids commenting on active FBI investigations, but he told NBC News on Tuesday that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak and appeared to embrace the notion that President Vladimir Putin might have been responsible because of what he described as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s affinity for Putin.

“What the motives were in terms of the leaks, all that, I can’t say directly,” Obama said. “What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin.”

Obama said he was basing his assessment on Trump’s own comments and the fact that Trump has “gotten pretty favorable coverage back in Russia.” He added that the U.S. knows that “Russians hack our systems — not just government systems, but private systems.”

The developing U.S. strategy, unofficially dubbed “name and shame,” is intended to raise diplomatic consequences for foreign governments involved in state-sponsored hacking.

In Moscow, Putin’s spokesman, while not directly denying Russian involvement in the hack, said Wednesday that Moscow would never interfere in another country’s election.

“President Putin more than once has said the Russia would never interfere and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, especially in the electoral process,” Dmitry Peskov told journalists in a conference call.

Peskov also criticized the willingness to accuse Russia of wrongdoing. “If we talk about some sort of suspicions against a country, then it is necessary at a minimum to be precise and concrete,” the spokesman said. “Some sort of speculation in this case does not show a constructive attitude.”

(AP)



6 Responses

  1. so weakling in chief what are you goign to do about it?
    draw another redline you will adhere to?
    throw more words at them?

    you still have not proven it is Russia. Don’t forget it’s easy for hacker to hide where are really at.
    you still have not proven Russian Gov;t or Putin involved.

    Obama as usual you have nothing.

  2. Sorry, it has been known that Russians were culpable in this over a month ago. And today Trump asked for more Russian espionage.

    Think about that. A candidate for President is asking a hostile foreign power to commit illegal acts to help him defeat his opponent. The last time this happened was never.

    Trump is the Haneen Zoabi of America.

  3. Commenter no. 1: Weakling in chief got Bin Laden (without Russia’s help). You think Trump and his hair spray are strong enough to do something like that?

  4. charliehall, stop spreading propaganda and Democrats lies on this forum. You think we are all ignorant and gullible like you are?

    Tramp was sarcastically responding to the accusation made by Democrats, without any evidence, that he is in collusion with Putin to embarrass Democrats. He did not ask Russians to break into email server. he asked them to release emails they may poses. You know, the emails about “Chelsea’s wedding and yoga lessons” the same ones Hillary deleted.

    You expect Trump to sit quite and not respond when attacked? Hes not Romney or McCain.

    charliehall, you should be more concerned with bigotry and antisemitism exposed by DNC email leaks.

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