In 2014, the administration got a report of Russia’s intention to disrupt Western democracies, including the United States.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration received multiple warnings from national security officials between 2014 and 2016 that the Kremlin was ramping up its intelligence operations and building disinformation networks it could use to disrupt the U.S. political system, according to more than half a dozen current and former officials.
As early as 2014, the administration received a report that quoted a well-connected Russian source as saying that the Kremlin was building a disinformation arm that could be used to interfere in Western democracies. The report, according to an official familiar with it, included a quote from the Russian source telling U.S. officials in Moscow, “You have no idea how extensive these networks are in Europe … and in the U.S., Russia has penetrated media organizations, lobbying firms, political parties, governments and militaries in all of these places.”
That report was circulated among the National Security Council, intelligence agencies and the State Department via secure email and cable in the spring of 2014 as part of a larger assessment of Russian intentions in Ukraine, the official said.
There was no explicit warning of a threat to U.S. elections, but the official said some diplomats and national-security officials in Moscow felt the administration was too quick to dismiss the possibility that the Kremlin incursions could reach the United States.
“Even if the Russians and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin had these ambitions, they were doubtful of their capacity to execute them,” the official said of the Obama administration.
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But subsequent events — including Russia’s interference in the American election through hacks of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta, among other intrusions identified by U.S. intelligence — have left many in the former administration wondering whether they could have done more.
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POLITICO spoke with more than a dozen current and former officials from across the national security spectrum, including intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Pentagon. Almost all said they were aware of Russia’s aggressive cyberespionage and disinformation campaigns — especially after the dramatic Russian attempt to hack Ukrainian elections in 2014 — but felt that either the White House or key agencies were unwilling to act forcefully to counter the Russian actions.
“[Intelligence officials] had a list of things they could never get the signoffs on,” one intelligence official said. “The truth is, nobody wanted to piss off the Russians.”
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A Russia-backed cyberattack against Ukraine’s voting infrastructure during the May election was thwarted at the 11th hour. The cyberintrusions — which in some cases could have changed voter tallies — were discovered just hours before what could have been catastrophic outcomes.
“The reports from sources deep inside the Russian government were alarming,” one current U.S. official who served under the Obama administration said. “We started getting stuff in April, May [of 2014] that was extraordinary about the extent of the threat and the capacities the Russians were building.”
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The Ukraine crisis — coupled with the Kremlin’s embrace of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who continues to be granted asylum by Moscow — was a sobering moment for the White House, one recently departed intelligence officer and the current administration official said.
Yet the administration still was reluctant to engage in more forceful counterintelligence strategies against the Kremlin, including more aggressively tracking and tailing Russian operatives within the United States, according to five of the officials who spoke to POLITICO.
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Tensions finally reached a fever pitch in the summer of 2016. Just days before Russian operatives began releasing troves of stolen DNC emails, a CIA officer under official diplomatic cover was brutally beaten outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The officer managed to slip to safety inside the door of the U.S. compound but was immediately evacuated for medical care.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials worked frantically to compile retaliatory options for the Obama White House. Despite being presented with several strategies — including more aggressively tailing Russian diplomats in the U.S. — it opted to do nothing immediately.
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Even after the release of emails designed to damage Clinton’s campaign, the White House was reluctant to respond, something that several recently departed Obama-era officials have lamented.
After compiling a list of potential retaliatory options in the summer of 2016 — including kicking out more than 100 Russian diplomats, one official told POLITICO — the pushback from national security agencies was so great and varied, the NSC official said, that for months nothing was done.
“Any of these actions risked a Russian reciprocation,” the former NSC official said. “We were kind of caught in a catch-22.”
After the election, in December, the White House finally announced the expulsion of 35 diplomats and ordered the Kremlin officials out of the two Russian-owned dachas.
But in a further indication of the tensions within the Obama team, Kerry rejected suggestions that he personally break the news of the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the former NSC official said. Instead, the job was left to Pat Kennedy, one of Kerry’s undersecretaries.
The former State Department official, speaking for Kerry, said the option of having Kerry communicate the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Lavrov was never discussed. But the former NSC official was unmoved.
“The idea of having Kerry doing it with Lavrov was raised several times and he didn’t want to do it,” the NSC official said.
The expulsions and closing of the dachas were symbolic moves that stung the Kremlin, but for many intelligence officers, it was too little, too late.
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Now, to the further frustration of some intelligence officers, there is little indication that, for all Trump’s bluster, he’ll be tougher on the Kremlin. In his first months in office, the president has signaled a willingness to work with Moscow on several fronts, and has pushed back hard against his own intelligence community’s assessment that Russia actively worked to elect him to the presidency.
It’s a bitter pill for many who see Trump’s election as the inevitable but avoidable outcome of years’ worth of counterintelligence failings against Russia.
“They were warned. They underestimated it until it was too late,” the current administration official said of the Obama White House and Russia, with a tinge of bitterness. “They just didn’t know how to deal with the bad guys.”
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Lots of news in this story: Obama WH got reporting in 2014 that Russia was building capacity to disrupt US democracy https://t.co/VSsYLmNwt5 pic.twitter.com/nycSPM1OBG
— Ali Watkins (@AliWatkins) August 14, 2017
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