Trump Oddly Quiet About Dangerous Russian Cyberattack on Pentagon & Homeland Security

Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo finally admitted publicly that Russia was responsible for the massive Solarwinds cyberattack on several sensitive US government agencies. Russian intelligence agency hackers used a piece of third-party software to embed code inside US government systems. The attack targeted the US departments of energy treasury, homeland security, state, defense and commerce in an attempt to steal national-security and defense information. It may take months to fully determine what information was compromised and the extent of the damage.

Thomas Bossert, Donald Trump's former homeland security adviser, wrote a piece for the New York Times on Wednesday in which he said, "the magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate."

While Pompeo was willing to acknowledge the attack, Donald Trump has been oddly silent, preferring instead to whine about his election defeat and plan his Apprentice reboot. We may never fully understand Trump's affinity for Vladimir Putin, but it has blinded him to the Russian dictator's increasingly aggressive attacks on America. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney captured the frustration of many on Capital Hill yesterday.

The Hill: "Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Thursday compared the incident to Russian bombers "flying undetected over the entire country," and harshly criticized Trump for not doing enough to counter the attack."

"Our national security is extraordinarily vulnerable," Romney said on SiriusXM's "The Big Picture with Olivier Knox." "In this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary."

President-elect Joe Biden realizes that Trump has checked out and has started to fill the void in Washington. He responded quickly to news of the hack and promised a firm response after taking office.

Axios, Biden: "A good defense isn’t enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place." ...

"We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners. Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation."

#news #Russia

By: Don Lam & Curated Content