Senate Democrats want President Obama to declassify information on Russian government hacks on US. entities during the presidential election before he leaves office.
“We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election that should be declassified and released to the public,” Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote in a letter to the president that was signed by the other Democrats on the panel. “We are conveying specifics through classified channels.”
The request raises political and substantive problems for Obama. The intelligence community blamed Russia publicly for the attack on the Democratic National Committee, but stopped short of a formal accusation about attacks on state voter registration systems; such statements raise the possibility of retaliation. President-elect Trump refused to admit that Russia was behind the hacks and so additional declassification by Obama could antagonize the incoming administration in the midst of the transition process.
But Democrats, still smarting from the results of the presidential election, haven’t forgotten the rolling leaks of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, which undermined the the Democratic nominee’s candidacy throughout the fall. And there is bipartisan support for preventing such hacks from taking place in the future.
“In the backdrop of seeing technology impact the recent election, I think that we clearly know that we have these duties,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said Tuesday during a debate on conducting cyber-security research with Israel. “We have to be thorough and we have to make sure that systems work and systems are protected.”
