WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday authorizing sanctions against foreigners who meddle in U.S. elections, acting after criticism that he has not taken election security seriously enough.
"We felt it was important to demonstrate the president has taken command of this issue, that it's something he cares deeply about -- that the integrity of our elections and our constitutional process are a high priority to him," said national security adviser John Bolton.
In the order, the president declared a national emergency, an action required under sanctions authority, to deal with the threat of foreign meddling in U.S. elections.
The order calls for sanctioning any individual, company or country that interferes with campaign infrastructure, such as voter registration databases, voting machines and equipment used for tabulating or transmitting results.
It also authorizes sanctions for engaging in covert, fraudulent or deceptive activities, including propaganda and disinformation on social media as well as direct interference in campaigns such as the email hacks the Democratic National Committee suffered in 2016.
The order requires the national intelligence director to make regular assessments about foreign interference and asks the Homeland Security and Justice departments to submit reports on meddling in campaign-related infrastructure. It also lays out how the Treasury and State departments will recommend what sanctions to impose.
With the midterm elections now two months away, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said the U.S. is not currently seeing the intensity of Russian intervention that was experienced in 2016, but he didn't rule it out. He said the U.S. also is worried about the cyberactivities of China, North Korea and Iran.
Coats said Trump's order directs intelligence agencies to conduct an assessment within 45 days after an election to report any meddling to the attorney general and Homeland Security Department. The attorney general and Homeland Security Department then have another 45 days to assess whether sanctions should be imposed.
"This clearly is a process put in place to try to assure that we are doing every possible thing we can, first of all, to prevent any interference with our elections, to report on anything we see between now and the election, but then to do a full assessment after the election to assure the American people just exactly what may have happened or may not have happened," Coats said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., are pushing a bill that would prohibit foreign governments from purchasing election ads, using social media to spread false information or disrupting election infrastructure. They said Trump's order recognizes the threat but doesn't go far enough.
The order gives the executive branch the discretion to impose sanctions for election meddling, but the bill would spell out sanctions on key economic sectors of a country that interferes. Those backing the legislation say that under the bill, a nation would know exactly what it would face if caught.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the order leaves the president with broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions. "Unfortunately, President Trump demonstrated in Helsinki and elsewhere that he simply cannot be counted upon to stand up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin when it matters," said Warner, who is sponsoring the bill.
The president has been criticized by lawmakers from both political parties for his reluctance to embrace the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Many members of Congress have raised concerns that the Trump administration isn't adequately prepared to defend the 2018 election.
At a July 16 news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump was asked whether he would denounce what happened in 2016 and warn Putin never to do it again. Trump did not directly answer the question. Instead, his response included his demands for an investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server and his description of Putin's "extremely strong and powerful" denial of meddling.
Trump has pushed back, saying that no other American president has been as tough on Russia. He has cited U.S. sanctions and the expulsion of alleged Russian spies from the U.S.
Mike Rogers, former director of the National Security Agency, said he thought Trump missed an opportunity in Helsinki to publicly scold Russia for meddling. Rogers said that when he used to talk to Trump about the issue, Trump would often respond to him by saying, "Mike, you know, I'm in a different place."
Rogers said he would tell Trump: "Mr. President, I understand that, but I'm paid by the citizens of the nation to tell you what we think. Sir, this is not about politics, it's not about parties. It's about a foreign state that is attempting to subvert the very tenets of our structure."
In his first public comments since he retired in June, Rogers said: "That should concern us as citizens. That should concern us leaders. And if we don't do something, they [the Russians] are not going to stop."
Rogers, who spoke Tuesday night at the Hayden Center at George Mason University in Virginia, also said that earlier media reports claiming Trump had asked him to publicly deny any collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign were inaccurate.
James Clapper, the former national intelligence director who appeared with Rogers and other former intelligence officials, said he personally believes that Russian interference did influence the outcome of the 2016 election. He didn't elaborate.
"The Russians are still at it. They are committed to undermining our system," Clapper said. "One of the things that really disturbs me is -- that for whatever reason, I don't know what it is -- the president's failure to dime out Putin and dime out the Russians for what they are doing."
Foreign influence campaigns that appear to be based in Russia and Iran have already cropped up on social media. Russian hackers also have appeared to target congressional campaigns, the Senate, and a conservative think tank with phishing emails.
Trump's top national security officials warned reporters of possible foreign interference in the election at a press briefing this summer. They included Bolton and Coats, who said at the time that hackers were a "keyboard click away" from serious interference.
Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press and by Alyza Sebenius and Justin Sink of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 09/13/2018