Congress to Quiz US Intelligence Official on Hacking Report
The nation’s top intelligence
official is set to be quizzed on a declassified report that fingered the
Kremlin in hacking during the presidential campaign, just one day after the US
sanctioned five Russians.
Tuesday’s appearance is second
time in a week for National Intelligence Director James Clapper on Capitol Hill
— this time before the Senate intelligence committee where lawmakers’ questions
will expose the underlying debate over the future of US-Russian relations.
The report explicitly tied Russia
President Vladimir Putin to hacking of email accounts of the Democratic
National Committee and individual Democrats like Hillary Clinton’s campaign
chairman, John Podesta. Russia also used state-funded propaganda and paid
“trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said, although
there was no suggestion such operations affected the actual vote count. The
report lacked details about how the US learned what it says it knows, such as
any intercepted conversations or electronic messages from Russian leaders,
including Putin. It also said nothing about specific hacker techniques or
digital tools the US may have traced back to Russia in its investigations.
The economic sanctions levied
Monday against five Russians are not related to the US intelligence agencies
findings, officials said, Instead, they are connected to a 2012 US law
punishing Russian human rights violators. Americans are now banned from doing
business with the men and any assets they may have in the United States are now
frozen. The most prominent individual targeted by the US is Alexander
Bastrykin, head of Russia’s main investigative agency. Bastrykin and Putin
attended the same university together.
The Investigative Committee under
Bastrykin investigated Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky’s death in prison
in 2009. It determined that Magnitsky died in detention and closed the case
after determining that there was no evidence of a crime. Two of the Russians
placed on the Treasury Department’s list have been accused of trying to help
cover up Magnitsky’s death. Britain blames the two others for the London murder
of a former Russian spy.
Forty-four Russians have now been
subjected to US sanctions under the so-called Magnitsky law, the State
Department said. Before the new penalties were announced, Putin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov told reporters on Monday that the Kremlin still believes the US
accusations of election hacking have no substance.
“They are amateurish and are
hardly worthy of the high professional standards of top intelligence agencies,”
Peskov said. “We categorically rule out the possibility that Russian officials
or official bodies could have been involved. We are tired of such accusations.
This is beginning to remind us of a full-fledged witch hunt.” According to US
intelligence agencies, Russia provided the emails to WikiLeaks. The website’s
founder, Julian Assange, denies that is the case, but Democratic and Republican
members of Congress have largely backed the accusation and many have demanded a
sterner response.
On Monday, Assange called the
report on hacking a politically motivated “press release” and said it provided
no evidence that Russian actors gave WikiLeaks hacked material.
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