California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, came out against President Barack Obama’s policies regarding Russia during an interview published Tuesday by The Atlantic.
Schiff criticized both Obama’s reaction to the alleged Russian hacking into Democratic Party institutions and individuals, in addition to his policies towards the nation in general. Schiff praised President Obama’s statement that existing divisions in the American political climate made the alleged Russian efforts more effective. He added, “Now, that being said, I think the president should have come out earlier with attribution [for the cyber campaign]. I don’t accept the argument that [the administration] couldn’t come out earlier because they hadn’t established the evidence of attribution.”
The California Democrat released a statement in September with fellow Californian Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that accused Russia of hacking into Democratic Party institutions.
“The evidence was clear for a very long time before they were public about it,” Rep. Schiff told The Atlantic. “I also think the process of sanctioning Russia should have begun far earlier, and we should have worked with our European allies to impose costs on Russia. That would have also telegraphed to the American people how serious this was.”
He said that by not doing this, “the administration missed an important opportunity to help inform the American public about the serious nature of the meddling that was going on.” Schiff added that he didn’t agree with the Obama administration’s explanation that they shouldn’t have come out earlier with information on Russia because it would suggest the election was rigged.
“That argument never resonated with me. The American public understood that someone was hacking and somebody was dumping,” Rep. Schiff told The Alantic. “To wait until after to tell them more about Russian meddling, I [thought], would prompt the criticism they’re hearing now, which is: They should have said more when they had an opportunity.” He said that there is an “obligation” on the Obama administration’s part that “when they saw a foreign nation trying to meddle, to be very blunt about it and very open about it, and to withstand the criticism if and when they were criticized.”
Later in the interview, the California Democrat said that President Obama had not acted tough enough against Russia during his tenure.
“I do think, in the case of Russia, that the administration should have leaned harder against the Russians, pushed back harder against the Russians—that the Russians view anything less than a full-throated opposition as encouragement,” Schiff said. “Early on I advocated that we provide the Ukrainians with defensive weapons, and I thought it was a mistake not to do that.”
He used the example of Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations with Russia over Syria and said that due to a lack of leverage provided by Obama “the Russians never took those negotiations seriously.”
“So I do think that the Russians came away feeling that they could be as aggressive as they wanted and they wouldn’t face much pushback,” he added. Schiff still thinks there is time for the Obama administration to implement more sanctions against Russia and would like to see that occur.
Schiff said, “The optimal would be economic sanctions, in cooperation with our European partners that have been the subject of Russian meddling also. That would make the Russians pay a real economic price.”
He said that the Obama administration has not been willing to enact sanctions as they’ve worried it would be too much of an escalation. “I think they have erred too much on the side of caution. And that has ended up costing us,” the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee added. The California Democrat has “no confidence that President Trump will bring about any sanctions on Russia.”
Schiff told The Atlantic: “So I think the [Obama] administration ought to do what it’s going to do ASAP. That may be some measure of sanctions [that Obama] can impose unilaterally, but those also may not survive the test of time. The clandestine steps that he takes now are things that could not be easily undone by the incoming administration. And that would also send a powerful message to the Russians.”
The California Democrat did not get into specifics about clandestine measures but said revealing corruption by Putin would be a “genie that can’t be put back in the bottle by the next president.”