He will not find it easy.
Mr Trump’s tweet was his first comment about the hack, which came to light a week ago. Privately, the president has called the hack a “hoax” and pressured his employees to downplay its significance and push alternative theories of who is responsible, two people familiar with the exchanges said. Larry Kudlow, his economic adviser, told reporters on Friday, “People say Russia. I do not know. It could be other countries. “
The president’s inexplicable reluctance to blame Russia – which has denied complicity in the attack through its embassy in Washington – has only complicated the response, investigators say.
The government only learned about the hack from FireEye, a cybersecurity company, after the company itself was breached. And Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, said on Thursday that government agencies are approaching Microsoft – not the national security organization – to understand the magnitude of the Russian breach.
“This is the most consistent cyber-espionage campaign in history and the absence of government is a huge problem for the nation,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, a security company now chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator. , a think tank.
“The response has been a total disaster, not only because of the president, but also because whoever remains is just polishing his resume,” he said. “There is no coordination and each agency is just doing what they can to help themselves.”
Mr. Trump’s comments on Saturday reflected his stance on the hacks during the 2016 presidential campaign, when he contradicts the intelligence agency’s findings by claiming it was China, or a “400 pound” person. who “sat on his bed”, not Russia, who interfered. that election. Two years later, Mr. Trump’s Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers.
“Never has a president worked so hard to cover Russia,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent and Russian information warfare expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.