Donald Trump may still be ignoring security experts, but President Obama is concerned enough about the intrusion of foreign agents into the election process to order a full review.
In October, the intelligence community publicly blamed Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other political organizations this year, calling the cyberattacks an intentional effort to interfere with the U.S. election process.
The report should be completed before Obama leaves office, so there won’t be an opportunity for Trump to squelch the results. President Obama will have wide support from Democrats in Congress.
The news comes as Democrats across Capitol Hill — plus Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — are clamoring for investigations into reported Russian hacking during the election.
There’s no doubt that the stream of emails hacked from the DNC were deliberately released in a way mean to foment conflict within the Democratic Party and depress Democratic votes, and other email stolen from private servers was given an enormous amount of attention from media (as well as conspiracy theorists) in the final days of the campaign.
There was also concern about attempted attacks on voter registration systems at the state and local level, though the intelligence community never said there was strong evidence that was tied to the Russian government. Voter registration databases are attractive targets for financially motivated hackers, as well.
Efforts to conduct a forensic evaluation on voting machines in Pennsylvania and Michigan as part of the recount effort have now been blocked, but the president’s review may offer a second opportunity to examine at least some voting machines.
President Obama’s request may not just allow a look at the “how” of what was done, but could also delve into the “why.”
Questions have remained about the extent of the hacking and Russians' motivations. While the intelligence community has not suggested the attacks were designed to bolster President-elect Donald Trump, the impact of the hacks were much more damaging to Democrats and to Clinton.
No doubt Trump will call out this effort as “political,” since he has already levied the same charge at intelligence agencies and security firms who earlier determined that hackers associated with the Russian government were behind the email thefts.