NEW DELHI: The US will retaliate against Russia’ for "impacting the integrity of" the American Presidential elections and it will do so “at a time and place of our own choosing”, said President
Barack Obama to National Public Radio (NPR), in an interview that will air later today.
The US intelligence community recently concluded that the Russian hacks were part of an effort to influence the 2016 US Presidential election.
Obama refrained from commenting on a CIA assessment, reported by NPR and other news outlets, that Russia's goal was to get
Donald Trump elected as US President. But Obama did say that "everyone during the election perceived accurately — that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign" than it did for the Trump campaign.
"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 — at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be," Obama said.
U.S. intelligence officials said that hackers working for Russia broke into the Democratic (Party) National Committee’s (DNC) computer network, as well as the private email accounts of John Podesta, a top adviser to Democratic presidential nominee
Hillary Clinton.
"There's no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were Hillary's emails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC," Obama said.
NPR said Obama acknowledged that every "big power" spies and collects intelligence on each other.
Still, he added that "There's a difference between that and the kind of malicious cyberattacks that steal trade secrets or engage in industrial espionage, something that we've seen the Chinese do. And there is a difference between that and activating intelligence in a way that's designed to influence elections."
Obama has ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full review of the cyber attacks before Trump's 'Inauguration Day'.
"There are still a whole range of assessments taking place among the agencies," Obama told NPR, referring to his order.
"And so when I receive a final report, you know, we'll be able to, I think, give us a comprehensive and best guess as to those motivations. But that does not in any way, I think, detract from the basic point that everyone during the election perceived accurately — that in fact what the Russian hack had done was create more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign."
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