The Obama administration's ability to respond to Russian interference during the 2016 election was limited by a heavily politicized environment.
A heavily politicized environment, coupled with concerns that public warnings would undermine confidence in the 2016 election, limited the Obama administration’s ability to respond to the Russian interference, according to a bipartisan congressional report released Thursday.
In 2016, Russia carried out a “sweeping and systematic” effort to interfere in U.S. elections through disinformation on social media, stolen campaign emails and attacks on voting systems. U.S. officials have made advances in trying to prevent similar attacks from undermining the 2020 vote, but the potential threats have increased and some old problems such as outdated and vulnerable voting machines have not been fully addressed.
The committee noted most Obama administration officials interviewed in the investigation said they had first learned about the Russian operation to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee from the media. The initial reaction of administration officials and members of the intelligence community was that Russia’s activity “fell within the bounds of traditional espionage” and was not understood at that point to be part of a broader campaign, according to the report.
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