Obama Orders Unprecedented Punishment for Russia Hacking; Russia: Will Respond to Any "Hostile Steps" By the U.S.; Trump on Russia Sanctions
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN GUEST HOST: Good evening. When asked about the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russian spies hacked American computers, tampered with U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump said we should all just get on with our lives. He said that last night. Today, President Obama said, "No, let's not." I'm Jim Sciutto, sitting in again tonight for Anderson, and that's the story of the heart of he the very busy evening. The White House unleashing sanctions on Russia, as well as high- ranking Kremlin figures, bouncing Russian diplomats and shutting a pair of Russian compounds in the U.S. And now, late tonight, the president-elect who has been so reluctant about blaming anyone for the hacking, he's speaking out again. First, CNN's Evan Perez joins for the latest on what the president- elect is doing and the current president is doing in response to this. So, what did President Obama have to say about why he took these actions now?</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this extraordinary set of sanctions President Obama says was in response to not only the meddling in the U.S. election but also to months of harassing of the U.S. diplomats in Russia. The president said in a statement, I'll read part of it. It says, "These actions follow repeated, private and public warnings that we've issued to the Russian government and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior." He also added that the U.S. will take additional actions that will not be publicized -- that, Jim, is a reference to possible convert retaliations that we may never know about.</s>SCIUTTO: It's been more than two months, two and a half months since the intelligence community fingered Russia are for being behind these attacks. Why now? Why is President Obama taking action now?</s>PEREZ: Well, exactly, and as you know this is something that's been debated among folks in the administration for months. And since Donald Trump's election, even Democrats were being sharply critical of the president for not doing more publicly. It's also clear that the administration sees the clock ticking three weeks to the new administration. The president-elect has not only been openly skeptical of the intelligence information that the Russians indeed were doing this, he's said he wants to turn the page to better relations with Moscow. Has unlikely he would take any of these actions once he takes off.</s>SCIUTTO: So, the question is what does he do with the sanctions in place? Could President-elect Trump easily turn them around? Reverse them?</s>PEREZ: Well, absolutely. These are presidential orders. So, yes, President Trump can with the stroke of a pen simply roll all of this back. Administration officials today told reporters that doing that would be highly unusual but there is also the fact that members of Congress, including Republican leaders today endorsed President Obama's actions. They also criticized President Obama for not doing some of it sooner, and some promise that Congress will take its own actions, perhaps making some of these sanctions tougher to roll back, Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, it's a remarkable back and forth between the outgoing and incoming president. Evan Perez, thanks very much. Now, more on the president-elect. He just weighed in tonight with a very brief issued statements. It reads, and I'll read in full, quote, "It's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its greats people, I'll meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation", end quote. That's all. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us now. Suzanne, you were on the call with Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary earlier today. President-elect Trump's pick for the White House when he takes office. What did he have to say about the sanctions?</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, Spicer said there are two aspects of this. One is political, that Trump and his transition team believed that there were people on the left who are trying to undermine or discredit Trump's big win. And that is what is largely driving this. Trump has called the accusations that Russia is behind this as ridiculous, just another excuse for delegitimizing his victory. And Spicer also says that in the U.S. has clear evidence that Russia interfered with the election, it should be put publicly for all to see. He says, they need further facts or every day that this is actually true. Now, as, you know, Trump gets its daily intelligence briefings, in this case, three times a week. So, certainly, the intelligence community would argue they have presented him with all the information he needs. Earlier the week, we saw Trump injecting more skepticism, saying computers have complicated lives very greatly. He says the whole age of computers has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on, that we have speed, we have a lot of things, but he says I'm not we have a kind of security we need. So, the emphasis here, Jim, is on cybersecurity and not retaliation against Russia. And so far, Trump and his team have not indicated whether or not he would take that extraordinary step of reversing the sanctions.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, I mean, it is also frankly on muddying the waters here, because the fact is U.S. intelligence community has identified North Korea as being behind the Sony attack. China being behind previous cyber hacks. So, it really seems that there is a widespread and really increasingly isolated effort by the Trump camp, because many Republicans have come out and said in fact really the vast majority of Republicans have come out and said Russia is behind this. What does the Trump camp saying to defend that line?</s>MALVEAUX: Well, one of his top advisors, Kellyanne Conway, telling CNN this evening that what they are seeing in President Obama's final days in office is this kind of toughness out the door that people hadn't seen before with the sanctions against Israel and now Russia. So read between the lines there. She said some of these moves the White House is making is largely symbolic, and again, that partisans are trying to fight the election war 52 days later. Here is how she put it.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, SR. ADVISER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: All we heard all through the election was Russia, Russia, Russia. Whenever it came to anything Donald Trump said or did it seemed most days and now, you know, since the election, it is just this fever pitch of accusations and insinuations, even on those who are sympathetic to President Obama on most issues are saying that part of the reason he did this today was to, quote, "box in" President-elect Trump. That would be very unfortunate if that were the motivating -- if politics were the motivating factor here, but we can't help but think that that's often true.</s>MALVEAUX: And, Jim, previously Trump had said that he does not believe sanctions against Russia when the annex Crimea actually worked. He called it useless. That is something that he might consider actually reversing. He's not made a comment either way whether or not he would reverse these sanctions -- Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes, shock, shock that politics could possibly be involved in Washington. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you very much. During the Cold War, both sides lived by Newton's third law. Every action would produce an equal and opposition reaction. Expel a diplomat, expect one of yours to be sent packing as well. You could pretty much set your watch by it. So, what about today? What are we hearing from Moscow in terms of its response, retaliation to retaliation? CNN's Matthew Chance is there in Moscow for us tonight and joins us with the latest. So, Matthew, what is the Kremlin saying they are planning to do and have they taken any steps yet?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in terms of what they are planning to do, the Kremlin have been pretty tight-lipped. They've said, look, obviously, reciprocal actions, as you just mentioned, are the only things that count in a situation like this. So, they are giving the sense that there are going to be U.S. diplomats, they're going to potentially face expulsion as well. They haven't officially announced that. I've heard from the foreign ministry earlier on this evening that any kind of first announcements are going to start coming through tomorrow morning here local time. It is the middle of the night at the moment, so they are not saying anything. The final decision will be made with Vladimir Putin. That's been made clear as well, and he's not in any rush according to the Kremlin to make that decision. Whether that means he's going to hold back and possibly for a few weeks until Donald Trump takes the White House or whether he's going to act sooner remains to be soon in terms of the expulsions. What we are hearing from a source in Washington there have been some measures already announced or that at least the American side has been informed of some measures. One of them is the closure to U.S. -- foreign citizen, U.S., Canadian and British citizens of the Anglo- American school, which is the main expatriate school in Moscow. I've got lots of friends who send their kids here. It would be a kind of a sideswipe. I've spoken to the principal tonight. He said he can't confirm it at the moment. He's waiting for further details about what exactly the situation is. But if it turns out to be the case, then that would be a real sideswipe to the diplomatic community here. Particularly the United States, many of whom have family people send their children to a school like that. So, that could be clarified in the morning.</s>SCIUTTO: Enormously disruptive for families, when the Magnitsky Act was passed, the anti-corruption act. Russian suspended adoptions by Americans so a tactic used before. Matthew Chance in Moscow, thanks very much. Perspective now from CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. She's former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. Also, Steven Hall, he's a 30-year veteran of Russian operations at the CIA, author of the recent piece for "The Washington Post" titled, "Why the CIA won't go public with evidence of the Russia's hacking". And we also have CNN's former Moscow bureau chief, Jill Dougherty. She's now a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center here in Washington. Steven, if I could start with you. Your reaction to the actions announced day. When we spoke last, you were concerned that naming names, even making intelligence findings could be costly for those in the CIA and FBI, and the battle here for U.S. intelligence is that this is secret stuff, right, and it reveals sources and methods. It reveals access that you have inside Russian systems. So, there is only so much, isn't there, that you can lift the veil.</s>STEVEN L. HALL, FORMER CIA RUSSIAN OPERATIONS OFFICER: Yes. This seems to be the first step that the administration is taking now to respond to these -- to the Russian hacks. It seems to be sort of break down into three different categories. The sanctions against the FSB, which is would have been the civilian intelligence service, and the GRU, one of the military intelligence services. It seems to be</s>SCIUTTO: And that has cost, does it not? Because I mean, we're talking about Russian diplomats leaving here but really the understanding is they are intelligence operatives. And any country like this, it is understood there are spies on the ground, some declared, some not declared. And, of course, the U.S. has spies on the ground, if you want to call them that, in Russia, assuming that they are sent packing as well, that's going to have an enormous impact, is it not, on U.S. intelligence gathering inside Russia, Steve.</s>HALL: As you might imagine, given the sensitivity of the intelligence collection and what happens in Moscow and Russia I'm not at much at liberty to talk that. But I can say that the removal of 35 diplomat, whether it is Russian diplomats or Washington or whether it is American diplomats in Moscow will have an effect on the mission of both of those embassies. So, yes, there will be a price to pay on both sides.</s>SCIUTTO: Jill, help us to understand Vladimir Putin's expected reactions here. I'm not going to ask you do predict. That is impossible to do. Our intelligence agencies have trouble doing that as well. He has said -- his spokesman has said there is no alternative to reciprocal measures but he also has what he presumes to be a friendlier U.S. president coming in. Does he temper the response here?</s>JILL DOUGHERTY, GLOBAL FELLOW, WOODROW WILSON INSTITUTE: I think he's looking at his watch and saying, we've got three weeks, so we might as well let it all hang out. I mean, you look at what they are doing. That step with the Anglo-American school is kind of a personal tawdry step by the Russians to get back at what they perceived are tawdry steps by the Americans. But I think Putin will probably look at this very seriously. Look at things he can do in a very strict let's say cyber way. He will do things that are symbolic and personal. And then he will do other things that will have to do with intelligence. So, I think it could be multilevel. And they keep saying it is going to be tit for tat. So, if there are some things that will not be revealed that the Obama administration will be taking, there will be things that will be not revealed by the Russians as well. But, Jim, I can tell you, the level of personal comments is amazing. On social media, the comments about Obama coming from the Russian administration are really unbelievable, you know, calling them losers, that this administration isn't really an administration. They are just a bunch of losers. That tweet coming from the Russian embassy in England, in London, the lame duck, an actual picture of a duck. It's pretty personal.</s>SCIUTTO: No question. We've heard some of that in our own politics here in the U.S. Juliette, you were on the White House call earlier to give some more details on this response. You said that the White House made it clear this is a reaction not just to the hacking, though, primarily, but also tied to Russia's conduct towards U.S. diplomats on the ground in Russia?</s>JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Sort of less- reported story over the last couple of months. And Jill has certainly talked about it before, is just the -- I would say the antagonism, harassment, sometimes even physical of U.S. personnel in Russia. So, the White House is clear that while we are all focused on cyber, this actually is bigger than the cyber attack that these sanctions and I think they wanted to make it clear for two reasons. One is there is no wiggle room in the intelligence community's assessment today. There is no outlier intelligence agency like we saw with the FBI perhaps earlier. The second is that because the executive order can only be rescinded by a president, it will require Trump to essentially go against his entire intelligence community. He can certainly do that. But it would take some explanation vis-a-vis his intelligence community, the one he'll be governing in the future. So, it's just important to note that this is -- that the executive order is not solely related to Russia. It could apply to the Chinese, or the North Koreans, if they try to do this again. And it's not solely focused on just cyber hacking. It's against any nation that now or in the future might try to undermine our democratic processes. So, while we're focused on 2016, this is really a statement about 2018, 2020 and elections ahead.</s>SCIUTTO: Perhaps strategically so. But let's not forget, Donald Trump to this point has been willing to stand up against this entire intelligence community. Maybe that doesn't change. Please hold that thought. We'll pick on this after a quick break and talk more about where this goes when it is only Trump and Putin. Later, a new ceasefire taking effect tonight in Syria. The real question, though, can this one hold? We've got a live report from inside the region.