President Barack Obama has directed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct an investigation into hacking attacks related to the U.S. election and issue a report before he leaves office next month, White House counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco said.
The report, which will be provided to Congress, will examine what impact hacking by Russia may have had on the election last month, Monaco said Friday at a breakfast in Washington hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
"We may be crossing into a new threshold and it's incumbent upon us to take stock of that," Monaco said. The report will "impart lessons learned," she said.
Obama wants the report before he leaves office on Jan. 20, she said.
Monaco said Obama has directed the intelligence community to capture "lessons learned and report to a range of stakeholders," including lawmakers. She did not commit to making the report public.
She added that there increase in malicious cyberactivity in recent years. Russia has overtaken China as the country of primary concern in the cyberthreat space, intelligence officials have said.
On Oct. 7, the intelligence community officially accused Russia of seeking to interfere in the election through the hacking of "political organizations." Though its statement never specified which party, it was clear officials were referring to cyberintrusions into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic Party groups. Hacked emails that were damaging to the party and its presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, soon after appeared on websites such as WikiLeaks.
The intelligence-community statement said such leaks were "consistent" with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's highest officials could have authorized these activities," the statement said.
President-elect Donald Trump has scoffed at that finding.
"I don't believe they interfered," Trump said in an interview with Time magazine published this week. "That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, 'Oh, Russia interfered.'"
"Why not get along with Russia?" Trump said, adding the Russians can help defeat Islamic State. On the perpetrator of the cyberattacks, he said, "it could be Russia, and it could be China, and it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said this week that Senate Armed Services subcommittees will probe Russian hacking under President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has praised as a strong leader.
"I am going to lead the charge to investigate Russia's role, not only in the elections but throughout the world," Graham told CNN. "So I'm going after Russia in every way we can go after Russia. I think they're one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay a price."
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, blamed Obama's administration for failing "to anticipate Putin's hostile actions" without mentioning Trump's position that Obama has been too tough on Putin.
"Unfortunately the Obama administration, dedicated to delusions of 'resetting' relations with Russia, ignored pleas by numerous Intelligence Committee members to take more forceful action against the Kremlin's aggression," Nunes said in a statement. "It appears, however, that after eight years the administration has suddenly awoken to the threat."
Urging that the administration declassify as much of the new report as possible to make it public, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Friday, "Given President-elect Trump's disturbing refusal to listen to our intelligence community and accept that the hacking was orchestrated by the Kremlin, there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month."
White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters "the president wants this done on his watch because he takes it seriously." He said the report "will be looking at all foreign actors" and not Russia alone and that "we're going to make public as much as we can."
Information for this article was contributed by Chris Strohm of Bloomberg News and by Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker of The Washington Post.
A Section on 12/10/2016