Report: White House Set to Punish Russia for Hacks
BLACKWELL: Welcome back. I'm Victor Blackwell in for Carol Costello this morning. The Obama White House reportedly getting ready to punish Russia for interfering in the U.S. elections. "The Washington Post" says expected announcement as early as this week. Now, this comes as some top Republican lawmakers brace for a showdown with Donald Trump. The issue here: whether or not Russia actually interfered in the 2016 race. Well, in recent weeks we know that Donald Trump has dismissed allegations of Russian hacking, and questioned U.S. intelligence agencies in the process. But, in an interview with CNN's Jim Sciutto, Senator Lindsey Graham minced no words about his views on Russia's involvement and the next steps the U.S. will take in response. Watch.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: There are 100 United States senators. Amy Klobuchar is on this trip with us. She's a Democrat from Minnesota. I would say that 99 of us believe the Russians did this. And we're going to do something about it. Along with senator McCain, after this trip's over, we're going to have the hearings and we're going to put sanctions together that hit Putin as an individual, and his inner circle, for interfering in our election.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, the senator mentioned there, many of his Senate colleagues agree with him. Among them, as he mentioned, John McCain. Now, for his part, the Arizona senator tells CNN he was, quote, "shocked" to hear that the president-elect disregarded the findings of the CIA and the FBI. But McCain added there could be one thing that changes Trump's mind.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I think he will be when presented with the overwhelming evidence, change his view.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. With me again, Jason Johnson, David Rohde, Frida Ghitis, and Ron Elving. Jason, let's start with you. What is that I guess assumption from Senator McCain based on? Donald Trump has the information. He's been briefed and still he says he's not convinced that Russia's responsible for the DNC and the Podesta hacking.</s>JASON JOHNSON, THEROOT: Right. Victor, this is a fantasy assumption on the part of John McCain. Donald Trump does not care. He has selected someone for secretary of state who is in Vladimir Putin's pocket. He allowed himself to work through the campaign with the assistance of hackers, of WikiLeaks who were working in conjunction with Vladimir Putin and what remains of his sort of information state that he's got. You know, Donald Trump doesn't care about any of this. All he cares about is the fact that he's in power. But I think people who actually care about America and care about sovereignty and don't want the country run by a Manchurian candidate should actually step forward and said we need to investigate why this happened and do something about it. But I also say this very quickly, sanctions now don't matter. President Obama should have made an Oval Office statement about this during his campaign and invited both Trump and Hillary Clinton to come to the White House and discuss this issue. To talk about it now, after the election, is almost pointless.</s>BLACKWELL: Let me get to the meat of the sanctions in a moment but, Ron, an illegal hurdle that the White House has to get over, making this proposal for sanctions fit into a previous executive order. Explain that for us.</s>RON ELVING, SENIOR EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON DESK, NPR: That's right, Victor. Going back to 2015 there were tools that were put in place for the executive to use to retaliate if a foreign power were found to be in some way or another hacking into our military computers, or in to something like infrastructure, power grid, and also into the computers of American businesses to obtain economic information that would advantage say a Chinese corporation. Since then, there have been negotiations with the Chinese on exactly that kind of a case. So, that does not necessarily cover any of those circumstances I just described. What we're looking at in 2016, and the hacking of the campaign. Now, a lot of people get confused about whether or not the hacking took place on Election Day, in the actual mechanics and apparatus of conducting the vote. That's not what's being alleged. What's being alleged is that throughout the campaign, the Russians were getting involved, hacking the Democratic Party, possibly hacking others as well, but using the information from the Democratic Party through WikiLeaks to change attitudes towards Hillary Clinton.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Frida, let me come to you and what Jason just raised there. What works in these sanctions, because there were sanctions that were leveled when the little green men started to show up on the Crimean Peninsula? Still, Russia annexed Crimea. What works as a deterrent for Russia in the future or potentially Iran or China?</s>FRIDA GHITIS, CNN.COM CONTRIBUTOR: Well, sanctions have had an impact on the Russian economy. But as you rightly say, they have not deterred the Putin government, they have not deterred him from continuing not only to interfere in America's elections, which is what the U.S. intelligence security services all believe, but also to interfere throughout Western Europe. Putin is determined to undermine democracy across the western bloc. So, what Obama is doing now to some extent is trying to block off Trump, to pressure him when he comes in to office, because when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters really now is what happens after January 20th. So, if Obama imposes these new sanctions now, he may make it more difficult for Trump to move forward without making a move that will show him more clearly to be aligning himself with Putin. And this whole Russia issue is going to be something very interesting to watch during the Trump administration because Trump as we know is very close to Putin emotionally, at least, but there are some in his cabinet, in his proposed cabinet, who are not. So we will see some kind of a disagreement here between the -- the nominated defense secretary who is very skeptical of Russia, and his -- his department of state leader, his state secretary. So, we could see a conflict between State and Defense over the future course of relations between the United States and Russia, and Trump will have to make a decision between the two and then, we will see what path the relations take.</s>BLACKWELL: David to you. I mean, it would be one thing to take no action in response to what the government calls overwhelming evidence that Russia's responsible for those hacks. It's another thing to roll back the previous president's actions. Is that something -- and I shouldn't say is it something, to what agree is that the consideration that the President Obama moves forward with these potential sanctions?</s>DAVID ROHDE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: He is putting Trump in a box. Will he roll back these sanctions? But this is going to happen again. It's a huge problem cybersecurity. We just had Chinese hackers indicted here in New York for hacking a law firms and profiting from it. You know, a colleague of mine at "Reuters", Joe Menn, wrote a long story how for years the U.S. government has studied hacking and trying to prepare for what's upon us today but they thought of simply hacking into sort of power grids. There was no preparation in the U.S. government for a disinformation campaign. The Russians executed it perfectly. And Trump will have to grapple with this when he takes office.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. David Rhode, Frida Ghitis, Ron Elving, Jason Johnson, thank you all. All right. Still to come, Princess Leia may have been her most famous role, but Carrie Fisher was also a role model for many. Her life as an author and an advocate, that's next.