In response to Friday’s Department of Justice indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for meddling in the 2016 election and hacking Democratic National Committee emails, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said this is a reminder that Russia seeks to “undermine our values” beyond elections.
[READ HERE: Mueller’s indictment against 12 Russians for hacking Democrats in 2016]
“Focusing on the potential impact of these actions on our midterm elections misses the more important point,” Coats said at the Hudson Institute. “These actions are persistent, they’re pervasive, and they are meant to undermine America’s democracy on a daily basis, regardless of if it is election time or not.”
Regarding the possibility of Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections, the former Senate Intelligence Committee member said, “We are one click of the keyboard away from a similar situation.”
“The warning signs are there,” Coats added. “The system is blinking.”
Coats praised U.S. intelligence agencies for being “much more integrated” in sharing information with one another in addition to the Justice and Homeland Security departments for fighting cyberattacks from Russia and other adversaries. He also praised President Trump for authorizing actions to fight cyber actors, including at the state level.
Nonetheless, Coats said, “We have to do better in what we deliver to our customers. How we get it to them in the speed by which they receive it.”
When asked by international relations scholar Walter Russell Mead what he would tell Putin, who is scheduled to meet with Trump on July 16 in Helsinki, Coats said, “My message would be, ‘We know what you’re doing and we know, you know, what you’re doing and what we are doing, so if your goal is to strengthen Russia in the proper way, we can cooperate with [you].’”
Coats continued, “But if your goal is to strengthen Russia at the cost to us, if you’re going to be a paranoid nation … if you have this paranoia about democracy, we’re not going to get anywhere.”
“Isn’t it best for both sides here to basically say, ‘Instead of taking down, why don’t we build up?’” Coats added. “President Putin, this decision is up to you. We know you run the shop.”
In addition to warning about the Russian threat, Coats responded to intelligence reports recently published in the Washington Post and other outlets about how North Korea has not slowed down its nuclear ambitions in the aftermath of the president’s meeting in Singapore last month with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“I think it’s too early to determine definitively that this is where [North Korea] is going to end up,” he said. “There’s been some reporting. Some of it has not been accurate, some of it has been accurate.”
Jackson Richman (@JacksonRichman) is an editor and daily columnist at the National Discourse.
