On Tuesday, the director of the National Security Administration and U.S. Cyber Command, chief Admiral, Mike Rogers, told the Senate Armed Service Committee that the United States did very little to dissuade or prevent Russia from meddling in future elections. Rogers said that president Donald Trump did not order him to retaliate against Putin for his interference in the 2016 presidential election nor to prevent more cyber attacks from Russia in the future.
Admiral Rogers reportedly told the Committee that the US is “probably not doing” enough to tackle the Russian threat. More so, he claims that the sanctions currently imposed on Russia were not enough to “change their behavior” or alter their plans for the future.
President Trump has been criticized for his poor response to the Russian meddling in the 2016 election, even shifting the blame on other parties. Trump also refused to implement sanctions that had been unanimously voted on by both houses of Congress, claiming that the idea of sanctions was enough to discourage Russian cyber attacks.
The NSA director’s statement on Tuesday is the most straightforward admission to date by a United States government employee that the president has opted to turn a blind eye to the Russian threat.
While Admiral Rogers admitted that Trump did little to allocate proper resources to the Russia meddling, he pushed back on suggestions that he should look for a presidential sign-off.
“I am not going to tell the president what he should or should not do,” the NSA director told Connecticut Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, when pressed to answer if Trump should give him authority. “I’m an operational commander, not a policymaker,”
Rogers, however, agreed with Blumenthal’s estimation that Russian cyber operatives continue to attack the US without much resistance and that Washington has failed to take the threat seriously.
Image Source: Defense.gov
Roxanne Briean
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