Sen. John McCain said Tuesday it was “disheartening” that the Trump administration has blown its deadline for a new plan to fight Russian hacking attacks, even as new allegations of election meddling emerged.
The Arizona Republican said a strategy had been promised within 90 days of President Trump taking office, and he pressed for a status update from Adm. Mike Rogers, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, during Senate Armed Services testimony.
Rogers said the administration’s new team was still working on the cybersecurity plan, which was slated to be done last month.
“The check’s in the mail?” McCain asked Rogers.
The lack of a new U.S. strategy came under fire during the same hearing in which Rogers, who also heads the National Security Agency, disclosed that the agency monitored the Russians as they hacked the French election last week.
The U.S. intelligence community also determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed an attack on the presidential election last year using email hacks and a social media disinformation plan to scuttle Hillary Clinton’s campaign and help Trump.
Trump, who initially dismissed Russia’s role, received the assessment before taking office and promised within 90 days of his inauguration to have a new cybersecurity strategy to protect against such attacks, which officials have confirmed also come from China and North Korea.
Rogers said the United States notified French counterparts it had witnessed Russia meddling in the election before a dump of winning candidate Emmanuel Macron’s emails online just before citizens went to the polls on Sunday.
