Senate report says Obama officials ‘not well-postured’ for Russian hacking

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report Thursday that found that the U.S. government was “not well-postured” to counter Russia’s election interference attempts in 2016, and strongly encouraged the Trump administration to take steps to prepare for future attempts.

The bipartisan report is the third volume released by the committee stemming from its three-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and examines how the Obama administration responded to reports of Russian interference and how future administrations can improve on this response.

The committee found that the U.S. government did not have the policy options necessary to counter Russian interference in 2016. It also found that the Obama administration was partially constrained from responding to the hacking and disinformation by Russian actors due to worries that warnings about election interference would undermine the public’s confidence in elections.

“The Committee found that the U.S. Government was not well-postured to counter Russian election interference activity with a full range of readily-available policy options,” the committee wrote in the report. “One aspect of the administration’s response–high-level warnings of potential retaliation–may or may not have tempered Moscow’s activity.”

The report concluded that the decision by the Obama administration to “limit and delay the information flow regarding the 2016 Russian active measures campaign, while understandable, inadvertently constrained the administration’s ability to respond.”

The committee strongly urged President Trump and any other future presidents to “separate” themselves from “political considerations” on the issue of election security.