The Obama administration received multiple warnings from national security officials between 2014 and 2016 that the Kremlin was ramping up its intelligence operations and building disinformation networks it could use to disrupt the U.S. political system, according to more than half a dozen current and former officials.
As early as 2014, the administration received a report that quoted a well-connected Russian source as saying that the Kremlin was building a disinformation arm that could be used to interfere in Western democracies. The report, according to an official familiar with it, included a quote from the Russian source telling U.S. officials in Moscow, "You have no idea how extensive these networks are in Europe ... and in the U.S., Russia has penetrated media organizations, lobbying firms, political parties, governments and militaries in all of these places."
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That report was circulated among the National Security Council, intelligence agencies and the State Department via secure email and cable in the spring of 2014 as part of a larger assessment of Russian intentions in Ukraine, the official said.
There was no explicit warning of a threat to U.S. elections, but the official said some diplomats and national security officials in Moscow felt the administration was too quick to dismiss the possibility that the Kremlin incursions could reach the United States.
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Even if the Russians and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin had these ambitions, they were doubtful of their capacity to execute them, the official said of the Obama administration.
Former White House officials, requesting anonymity to discuss intelligence reporting, confirmed that the administration began receiving increased traffic in 2014 about Russian disinformation and covert influence in campaigns, but said they did not recall receiving that specific warning about Russian inroads in the United States.
Ned Price, a former spokesperson for the National Security Council, rejected the idea that the administration failed to heed warnings about Russian interference in the U.S. political system or Russian cyberespionage in general.
The Obama administration was nothing but proactive in responding to Russian aggression in all of its forms, especially as Moscow became more brazen with and following its military moves against Ukraine beginning in 2014, Price said, citing sanctions and increased American support to NATO as evidence of the former administrations seriousness.
But subsequent events including Russias interference in the American election through hacks of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta, among other intrusions identified by U.S. intelligence have left many in the former administration wondering whether they could have done more.
People have criticized us ... for not coming out more forcefully and saying it, former CIA Director John Brennan said at the Aspen National Forum in July. There was no playbook for this.
On Oct. 7, 2016, about a month before the election, the administration revealed, through a statement from the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, that the U.S. government believed Russia was behind the hacks and was seeking to interfere with the election. The revelation, which many in the White House expected to be bombshell news, was largely overshadowed by the revelation that same day of an Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump made crude and sexist comments to anchor Billy Bush.
But others in the national security community say an overly cautious Obama White House could have done more both during the campaign and in the previous months and years to alert Russia that it was aware of its intentions to subvert the U.S. democracy along with those of some other Western countries and would retaliate forcefully at the first sign of Russian interference.
POLITICO spoke with more than a dozen current and former officials from across the national security spectrum, including intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Pentagon. Almost all said they were aware of Russias aggressive cyberespionage and disinformation campaigns especially after the dramatic Russian attempt to hack Ukrainian elections in 2014 but felt that either the White House or key agencies were unwilling to act forcefully to counter the Russian actions.
Intelligence officials "had a list of things they could never get the signoffs on, one intelligence official said. The truth is, nobody wanted to piss off the Russians.
Among the strategies put forward prior to the 2016 election were closing two Russian dachas in Maryland and New York, which were long suspected of being Russian intelligence sites, expelling diplomats and engaging in counterintelligence operations that would alert Putin to the United States determination to strike back against any attempts at interference in the U.S. political system.
Officials outside the White House blamed micromanagement by the National Security Council for the lack of a more forceful response, while a former NSC official says any failure to act forcefully against Russia was because of concerns by the State Department and, less frequently, the Defense Department about potential retaliation by Moscow.
The frustrations [about lack of forceful action] are justified and, frankly, were shared by the White House, said the former official, who requested anonymity due to this person's continuing work in Russia.
The options were being discussed. They werent being implemented, the former official added.
The State Department and Pentagon often objected to harsher measures endorsed by the intelligence community, one official said, a difference in perspective that some attributed to the fact that diplomatic staff and defense attaches were obvious targets of retaliation, rather than intelligence officers who usually work undercover.
Concerns about Russian cyberespionage and election meddling largely grew out of the events following Russias annexation of Crimea in March 2014, followed by an aggressive Russian effort to influence the Ukrainian presidential election that May.
A Russia-backed cyberattack against Ukraines voting infrastructure during the May election was thwarted at the 11th hour. The cyberintrusions which in some cases could have changed voter tallies were discovered just hours before what could have been catastrophic outcomes.
The reports from sources deep inside the Russian government were alarming, one current U.S. official who served under the Obama administration said. We started getting stuff in April, May [of 2014] that was extraordinary about the extent of the threat and the capacities the Russians were building.
We were worried [Putin] would try to test us, recalled a former Obama administration official.
The Ukraine crisis coupled with the Kremlins embrace of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who continues to be granted asylum by Moscow was a sobering moment for the White House, one recently departed intelligence officer and the current administration official said.
Yet the administration still was reluctant to engage in more forceful counterintelligence strategies against the Kremlin, including more aggressively tracking and tailing Russian operatives within the United States, according to five of the officials who spoke to POLITICO.
Those outside the White House said they received frustrating mixed messages: The White House would subsequently dismiss Moscows capabilities while also citing fear of an escalation with Putin.
Price, the former NSC spokesman, denied those claims.
We responded with the same clarity of purpose following Moscows aggression against U.S. officials in Russia and, of course, in the face of the Kremlins attempt to undermine the integrity of our electoral process, he said.
But several senior intelligence and administration officials recall it differently.
It just seemed like it was difficult, especially after the Crimea and the Ukraine ... there still wasnt a willingness to more heartily engage in the effort, the former intelligence officer said.
In one particularly frustrating instance, officials said, they reiterated a longstanding desire to shut down the two Russian dachas in Maryland and New York. Amid escalating tensions, it was often presented as a way to send a message to Moscow.
For quite some time, it was an active option. Secretary Kerry refused to consider it, the former NSC official said. We were getting pushback from the head of the agency being harassed. That was a constant frustration.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry was overseas and unavailable for comment. But a former senior State Department official, speaking as a representative of Kerry, saw it differently. Kerry agreed to shut down the dachas, but had not settled on the timing, the official said.
Tensions finally reached a fever pitch in the summer of 2016. Just days before Russian operatives began releasing troves of stolen DNC emails, a CIA officer under official diplomatic cover was brutally beaten outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The officer managed to slip to safety inside the door of the U.S. compound but was immediately evacuated for medical care.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials worked frantically to compile retaliatory options for the Obama White House. Despite being presented with several strategies including more aggressively tailing Russian diplomats in the U.S. it opted to do nothing immediately.
There was some real anger, the former intelligence officer said. We werent going to mug anybody, but we could at least be more overt in our coverages. We could expel some people, we could do more overt surveillance on people.
Another former intelligence official put it this way: The longer we dont push back, the harder they push.
Even after the release of emails designed to damage Clintons campaign, the White House was reluctant to respond, something that several recently departed Obama-era officials have lamented.
After compiling a list of potential retaliatory options in the summer of 2016 including kicking out more than 100 Russian diplomats, one official told POLITICO the pushback from national security agencies was so great and varied, the NSC official said, that for months nothing was done.
Any of these actions risked a Russian reciprocation, the former NSC official said. We were kind of caught in a catch-22.
After the election, in December, the White House finally announced the expulsion of 35 diplomats and ordered the Kremlin officials out of the two Russian-owned dachas.
But in a further indication of the tensions within the Obama team, Kerry rejected suggestions that he personally break the news of the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the former NSC official said. Instead, the job was left to Pat Kennedy, one of Kerrys undersecretaries.
The former State Department official, speaking for Kerry, said the option of having Kerry communicate the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Lavrov was never discussed. But the former NSC official was unmoved.
The idea of having Kerry doing it with Lavrov was raised several times and he didnt want to do it, the NSC official said.
The expulsions and closing of the dachas were symbolic moves that stung the Kremlin, but for many intelligence officers, it was too little, too late.
While some Obama White House officials privately concede that they, too, wish there had been a more forceful response, others stand by the decisions that were made.
People at the working level dont necessarily understand the full scope of policy implications, one former White House official said.
Now, to the further frustration of some intelligence officers, there is little indication that, for all Trumps bluster, hell be tougher on the Kremlin. In his first months in office, the president has signaled a willingness to work with Moscow on several fronts, and has pushed back hard against his own intelligence communitys assessment that Russia actively worked to elect him to the presidency.
Its a bitter pill for many who see Trumps election as the avoidable outcome of years worth of counterintelligence failings against Russia.
They were warned. They underestimated it until it was too late, the current administration official said of the Obama White House and Russia, with a tinge of bitterness. They just didnt know how to deal with the bad guys.
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Obama team was warned in 2014 about Russian interference - Politico