President Barack Obama vowed the U.S. would respond to Russian cyberattacks intended to interfere with the presidential election, while Hillary Clinton told donors the hacks were partially to blame for her loss to President-elect Donald Trump.
At a fundraising event in New York Thursday night Clinton said the Russians had sought to "undermine our democracy" through the cyberattacks, which she believed were a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's "personal beef" against her.
"Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election," the Democrat said, according to a recording of the event obtained by the New York Times.
Clinton also said FBI director James Comey's October 28 letter disclosing a new investigation of emails from her time as secretary of state damaged her with swing-state voters days before the election. The two factors were "unprecedented," Clinton said.
President Obama, in an interview with NPR News which aired Friday morning, said "we need to take action" following any attempt by a foreign government to impact the integrity of U.S. elections.
"And we will," Obama said. "At a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be."
The renewed focus on the Russian hack has prompted complaints from the Trump transition team the White House is attempting to undermine the Republican's victory. The administration announced late last week plans to issue a report on electoral cyberattacks before Obama leaves office on January 20.
The White House and Trump team have traded escalating insults in recent days threatening the detente between Trump and Obama, who has sought a working relationship with his successor partially in a bid to preserve some of his policies. It's also blurred traditional party lines in Washington, with some Republicans expressing alarm over Russia's attempts to influence an election ultimately won by their nominee and some Democrats upset the White House didn't more aggressively confront the Kremlin before Election Day.
He was referring to emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta which indicated a Democratic official and CNN analyst, Donna Brazile, had obtained questions to be asked in debates during the Democratic primary and relayed them in advance to Clinton's campaign.
The president-elect's latest missive followed a Twitter message Thursday again casting doubt on Russia's involvement in the hacking and erroneously said the Obama administration had waited until after the election to respond.
At a rally Thursday in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Trump targeted White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who has repeatedly criticised the president-elect for refusing to publicly accept Russia's role in the leak of emails.
Trump called Earnest a "foolish guy," and suggested the press secretary was "getting his orders" from someone other than Obama.
In the NPR interview, Obama said the alleged Russian hacking had succeeded in roiling the election because it created "more problems for the Clinton campaign than it had for the Trump campaign."
No Doubt'
"There's no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were Hillary's emails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC," Obama said.
Obama stopped short of saying the Russian hack was fully responsible for Clinton's loss, but said he had no doubt it had "some impact" on the race. He also indicated Putin, who the administration has suggested may have personally directed the effort, was "well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about that."
He also said congressional Republicans should be supportive of his administration's efforts to highlight Russian interference.
"The irony of all this, of course, is that for most of my presidency, there's been a pretty sizable wing of the Republican Party that has consistently criticised me for not being tough enough on Russia," he said.
"Some of those folks during the campaign endorsed Donald Trump, despite the fact that a central tenet of his foreign policy was we shouldn't be so tough on Russia. And that kind of inconsistency, I think, makes it appear, at least, that their particular position on Russia on any given day depends on what's politically expedient."
'Playing Politics'
Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and vocal Trump supporter, said Friday Democrats were "certainly playing politics" with the situation. He told CNBC he had been denied a request to be briefed by CIA officials on Russia's involvement, and he had not seen evidence Russia was responsible.
"I'm assuming that's true, but who did they hack?" Johnson said. "Was it the DNC? Was it John Podesta? I haven't seen that evidence."
Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday his panel will continue to investigate Russian hacking of U.S. interests, including the breaches of political groups before the 2016 election. In a statement, the North Carolina Republican said the committee would hold hearings in the new year, interviewing officials from both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Burr defended "the hard-working, patriotic Americans" working for U.S. intelligence agencies, saying "they check politics at the office door and focus on their mission." Trump's transition team last week ridiculed the intelligence agencies for their claims of foreign interference in the election, and drew comparisons with the erroneous findings that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in 2003.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in the email leaks, and spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Tokyo on Friday the U.S. should prove its accusations against Russia.
"Either stop talking about it or finally provide some evidence. Otherwise it looks indecent," Peskov said while in Japan where Putin is meeting with Japanese leaders.
The administration also faced new criticism from Podesta, who wrote in a Washington Post commentary published Friday the FBI had been more scrupulous in its investigation of Clinton's emails than it was in investigating the DNC hacks.
"Comparing the FBI's massive response to the overblown e-mail scandal with the seemingly lackadaisical response to the very real Russian plot to subvert a national election shows that something is deeply broken at the FBI," Podesta said.
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