Washington: The Obama administration is close to announcing a series of measures to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election, including economic sanctions and diplomatic censure, according to US officials.
The administration is finalising the details, which also are expected to include covert action that will probably involve cyber-operations, the officials said. An announcement on the public elements of the response could come as early as this week, the Washington Post reported.
For weeks the White House had been debating on how to revise a 2015 executive order that was meant to give the President authority to respond to cyberattacks from overseas but that did not cover efforts to influence the electoral system. The Obama administration had rolled the executive order as a way to punish and deter foreign hackers who harm US economic or national security. But officials had concluded that the order could not be used to punish Russia’s hacking that targeted the election systems and meddling in the presidential election, the Post said.
According to officials, the White House is working on adapting the authority to punish the Russians.
The National Security Council had earlier concluded that it would not be able to use the authority against Russian hackers because their malicious activity did not fit under its terms, which require harm to critical infrastructure or the theft of commercial secrets. The US could use the order against Moscow by declaring the electoral systems as part of the “critical infrastructure” of the US. Or the order could be amended to clearly apply to the new threat.
