Russian hacking has been more widespread than officials have disclosed, current and former defense officials told NBC News in a weekend report, and could encompass an untold number of Republicans.
“High-profile former officials, political figures, current officials,” one official said in describing targets of the hacking, quantifying the scope as including “hundreds of people” from both parties. “I can’t tell you who the Russians are going to leak information about next … the only thing I can tell you is that there are going to be more leaks.”
The report comes after Friday’s pronouncement, made jointly between the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, that Russia was culpable for attacks against the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
It remains to be seen whether that report could play into the second presidential debate, scheduled to take place Sunday evening in St. Louis. Democrats have long sought to blame Russia for recent cyberattacks, but until now, lacked an authoritative statement from intelligence officials to back the claim.
The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was reserved in commenting on the announcement. “The Russians are interested in both political parties,” California Rep. Adam Schiff said in an interview with NBC.
“They would certainly target Republicans if there is a chance of a Republican becoming president, which obviously there is,” Schiff noted. “They would also target Republicans that would influence the next president, and they would also target people with the interest in disrupting [the election] or sowing discord.”
A key question for candidates going forward is whether the United States should publicly retaliate, a measure that would likely manifest in some form of economic sanctions. Though Democrats have been the most vocal in protesting hacking by Russia this year, some Republicans have been the quickest to suggest the U.S. should respond.
“Russia must face serious consequences,” Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said in a statement of his own. “Moscow orchestrated these hacks because Putin believes Soviet-style aggression is worth it. The United States must upend Putin’s calculus with a strong diplomatic, political, cyber, and economic response.”
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Intelligence officials also went a step beyond attributing responsibility for the attacks in their Friday statement, additionally accusing DCLeaks, WikiLeaks, and the figure known as Guccifer 2.0 of collaborating with the Russian government to publish files that have been obtained.
That means that as candidates grapple with the question of how to respond, the possibility of new hacked documents emerging from key political figures looms large over the November election.
“Essentially people are opening their front door and letting them in,” said Toni Gidwani, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who now works as the Director of Research Operations at cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect.
Gidwani said it wasn’t clear when more leaks come, or who they would affect. “It’s perfectly possible that … people and organizations are being targeted and breached but that if the adversary doesn’t see the value in leaking it, and holding on to it, we wouldn’t know. They could just be waiting for the right time to release it.”
