‘At a Time and Place of Our Own Choosing’
President Barack Obama spoke at length about the Russian government’s hacking during the U.S. election and promised to take action. In an interview with NPR published Monday night Obama said “we need to take action. And we will.”
Asked by NPR’s Steve Inskeep if the Russian government needs to “pay some price” for the hacking of U.S. political institutions, including the DNC and clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails, President Obama responded, “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.”
The president also spoke to the review he has ordered from U.S. intelligence agencies, to be completed before he leaves office.
“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.”Â
“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 concluded.
The President also noted he spoke wth Russian President Vladimir Putin about Russia’s hacking face to face at the G-20 in September in China. Putin, Obama said, “is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it.”
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