by Susan Rice
In our initial meetings, we quickly determined that we had to pursue a multitrack counterstrategy.
First, we asked the Intelligence Community to increase collection and accelerate efforts to produce a unified assessment of what exactly the Russians were doing and why, so that we could share the findings with the American people. Given the gravity of the issue, it was important that the conclusions of the IC be agreed to by all its components and that they could collectively affirm “high confidence” in their validity. This impartial IC assessment was a prerequisite to informing the American people, which we deemed urgent and essential, and we hoped it would be backed publicly by the bipartisan leadership of Congress. Unfortunately, it took the IC until the end of September to reach a sufficient level of confidence and unity in their assessment, and we were unable to get congressional agreement on a bipartisan statement, which would have underscored that what we were announcing was not motivated by partisan politics.
Finally, on October 7, we were able to issue an unprecedented, flashing-red public warning from the director of national intelligence and the secretary of homeland security, the senior officials we believed were best placed to deliver such a finding. Some have wondered why President Obama or the White House did not issue the statement, given its significance. Since the president and the political arm of the White House were engaged in the campaign, we thought that any announcement from the White House would muddy the message that the warning was to be understood as a purely nonpartisan, national security matter. The October 7 statement revealed:
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations.… These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.… We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
News of this high-level U.S. government warning about Russian interference in our national election was quickly overtaken by other events. Not long after I had sent Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak packing from my office, having informed him we were about to call out publicly Russia’s intervention in our election, Denis walked into my office.
He said, “Have you seen the video?”
“What video?”
“Just go online and you will see.”
Holy shit, I thought, as I watched the Access Hollywood tape of candidate Trump boasting about sexually abusing women. How in the hell can he survive this? How can such a misogynist be president?
And then came, almost right away, the curiously timed WikiLeaks release of John Podesta’s hacked emails.
Suffice it to say, these two dramas knocked our stark announcement of Russian electoral interference down “below the fold” on the front pages of our national newspapers. The impact that we hoped the DNI statement would have on public understanding was more than diluted by the subsequent news of the day.
Second, in early August, the president ordered Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to convene the secretaries of all fifty states urgently to inform them of the threat and enlist their cooperation to harden their states’ electoral systems so that hackers could not penetrate them effectively. Johnson did so but was surprised to find that many Republican secretaries of state forcefully rejected Johnson’s suggestion that DHS designate their state electoral systems as “critical infrastructure,” which would have given the federal government greater latitude to assist the states. Numerous “red states” viewed this proposal as an infringement on their sovereign rights and pushed back with such force that Johnson relented, calculating that it was better to get as much voluntary cooperation as possible, rather than engender additional resistance by pressing the “critical infrastructure” designation, even though it would have helped.
Third, President Obama directed John Brennan to brief bipartisan congressional leaders (the so-called “Gang of Eight”) as soon as possible on the same threat report he had received. We needed not only congressional leaders’ awareness but their cooperation to convey to the American people that we faced a serious threat to the integrity of our democracy that could affect all voters and candidates in both parties up and down the ballot. We wanted Congress’s help to underscore the truth that Russian interference was not a partisan concern but a serious national security threat.
It took over a month for all eight leaders to make themselves available to receive Brennan, who was ready to fly to meet them anywhere over the August congressional recess. Certain Republican leaders were not willing to be briefed until after Labor Day. When finally informed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cast doubt on the credibility of the reporting and deliberately downplayed the threat. McConnell’s motivations appeared plainly partisan, as he somehow sensed this revelation might harm candidate Trump.
In early September, President Obama personally asked the four bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate to coauthor a letter underscoring their shared concern with the Russian threat and advising states to take it seriously, but McConnell continually blocked the effort to issue a timely bipartisan warning to the American people. We also requested a public bipartisan statement regarding Russian interference that would serve to make clear to the American people that this was not and should not be construed as a partisan issue. For weeks, Senator McConnell refused to budge. When, finally in late September, he relented, McConnell would only affix his name to an anodyne, hard-to-decipher letter that didn’t even mention Russia.
Fourth, we set out to deter Russia from taking actions that went beyond their activities to date (the previous hacking, the strategically timed release of hacked information, and propaganda activities) and to prepare an appropriate response to their egregious conduct. We knew there was much more Russia could do—falsely smear a candidate; release faked versions of stolen information; penetrate the election systems to disenfranchise voters; or more difficult, but not impossible, attempt to alter the vote count in certain places. We assessed that much of what Russia had stolen they had already transferred to third parties, including WikiLeaks. Those cats were likely already out of the bag.
Our aim now was to prevent a worst-case scenario. Brennan delivered a stark warning to his Russian counterpart making plain that we knew what they were doing. President Obama cornered Putin for a one-on-one conversation after their formal meeting at the G20 on September 5, in Hangzhou, China. Obama delivered a carefully crafted, forceful message telling Putin, in essence—We know exactly what you are doing, we will be watching carefully, and, if you do anything further, we will punish Russia in ways you have not experienced before. While deliberately ambiguous about the nature of the consequences, Obama left no doubt that he was serious. As expected, Putin denied and deflected, falsely trying to shift blame to the U.S. for stoking the so-called “color” revolutions in former Soviet states. A month later, Obama reiterated and amplified his warning in a private, written message to Putin, which I delivered through Ambassador Kislyak.
Meanwhile, a subset of the NSC Deputies and Principals, along with a very few staff experts, readied the economic, diplomatic, cyber, and other measures to punish Russia not only for what they had done but also in the event they went further and, for example, tried to affect the vote. These measures were prepared so that they could be deployed when the president determined the time was right. It is not the case, as has been reported, that I quashed further work on cyber options. That work proceeded. Rather, I insisted that knowledge of this highly sensitive effort be restricted to a very small group of senior officials and that it be considered along with other punitive response options, not in isolation.
Since our aim, in the first instance, was to deter more detrimental Russian interference, President Obama did not deem it wise or necessary to preemptively punish Russia for what they had already done before the election, unless we saw evidence that Russia had crossed the line th
e president had drawn. Preemptive U.S. penalties on Russia might well have provoked precisely the kind of more hostile actions we were trying to deter. We assumed that part of Russia’s aim was to sow public doubt about the integrity of the election process. At the same time, we were mindful that candidate Trump’s repeated, unfounded allegations that the election would be rigged only fed such doubts. We did not want to do the Russians’ dirty work for them. Therefore, the administration sought to avoid steps that could unintentionally cast doubt on the credibility of the election, unless Russian escalation forced us to do so.
President Obama was deeply determined to act and be seen to be acting in an apolitical, unbiased manner in dealing with the Russian threat, even as he served simultaneously as the leader of one political party. Above all, he did not want to put any weight on the scales of our electoral process; equally, he prioritized maintaining public confidence in the integrity of our democracy.
Inside the administration, we studied Russian actions closely, looking particularly for evidence that they were trying to manipulate the mechanics of the voting process. All the while, we remained locked and loaded, ready to retaliate before the election, if necessary.
Prior to the election, the Intelligence Community did not in fact detect evidence that Russia was corrupting the mechanics of the voting—by fouling voter rolls or vote tallies. Nor did we see Russia falsify stolen information. What we all did see was the continued, strategically timed release of stolen emails that had been handed over to WikiLeaks and others in the spring and summer of 2016. We also observed sustained efforts by the Russian outlets, RT television and Sputnik news service, to publish content favorable to Trump and unfavorable to Clinton.
However, both the Intelligence Community and administration policymakers were less focused on the potential impact of Russia’s ongoing manipulation of social media—its use of bots, troll farms, and fake personas—to plant false or misleading content aimed at biasing voter opinions. In retrospect, we substantially underestimated the pervasiveness and severity of Russia’s social media manipulation in the run-up to the 2016 election. Only after we left office, when further information reached the public domain, did I and others fully appreciate the influence of Russian social media activities on shaping public sentiment.
After the election, the Principals Committee reconvened to take stock and revisit the punitive options we had formulated in August and September. The IC provided an updated, far more stark assessment of the purpose of Russia’s interference, which they concluded was to harm Secretary Clinton’s electoral prospects and to advantage Donald Trump. President Obama tasked the IC to compile a comprehensive assessment of all available information about Russia’s role in the 2016 election and to provide a classified version to him, the president-elect and his team, and Congress by early January, as well as to prepare an unclassified report for the American people.
The Principals refined and sharpened the menu of potential punishments to levy against Russia. In late December, the president announced that we would punish Russia by: sanctioning two Russian intelligence services as well as malicious entities and individuals; publicly exposing the cyber tools and tricks Russians used to infiltrate our systems; closing two Russian compounds, or “dachas,” in Maryland and New York used by Russian diplomats for vacationing and clandestine activities; expelling thirty-five Russian “diplomats” who we believe acted as spies; and continuing “to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized.”
We knew at the time that these sanctions and other punitive actions, while serious, were not the maximum measures the U.S. could take. The toughest sectoral sanctions we considered would have adversely impacted our European allies, not just Russia. We were reluctant to harm our allies, particularly as we sought to solidify their fragile support for sustaining strong European Union sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. In addition, we were mindful that President-elect Trump remained dismissive of Russian interference in the election and seemed open to lifting previous U.S. sanctions on Russia for Ukraine and other misbehavior. Recognizing the risk that, if we imposed maximum penalties, Trump might turn around and lift them soon after his inauguration, I and others sought to avoid a potential reversal that would be detrimental to U.S. credibility.
Indeed, we were surprised that soon after our sanctions announcement, President-elect Trump publicly congratulated Putin on refraining from immediate retaliation. This strange tweet raised questions as to whether the Trump transition team had suggested to Russia that they may later undo our sanctions. Our worries were later validated.
In early January, President Obama and select senior advisors received the highly classified findings of the Intelligence Community assessment of Russian interference in U.S. elections. It was in this context that we received for the first time a highly classified, brief summary from the IC of the so-called “Steele Dossier,” named for the British former intelligence officer who compiled the report containing salacious allegations about Trump’s behavior in Russia. President Obama, like the rest of us, was revolted by this information and protested even hearing about it. I insisted he receive at least the bare minimum, because President-elect Trump was to be briefed on it, and there was always the possibility that it could become public knowledge. This exchange was one of my most uncomfortable with President Obama in the Oval Office.
In retrospect, I wish that in December 2016 we had hit the Russians harder with powerful sectoral sanctions that shook the foundations of the Russian economy. We refrained in order to spare our European allies and to avoid any adverse boomerang effects on the U.S. economy. Nevertheless, given continued Russian interference in our democracy, I believe we must still impose maximum costs to try to prevent future interventions. Regrettably, neither Congress nor the Trump administration has yet wielded nearly the full force of our economic power against Russia.
Dealing with Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election was a uniquely challenging policy problem. Each judgment we faced was difficult—when to go public; who should announce the Intelligence Community’s findings; how to deal with a divided and suspicious Congress; how to inform the public without scaring them unduly; when and how to punish Russia; how to deal with a candidate who was stoking fears of voting fraud, praising WikiLeaks, and encouraging Russian hacking of his opponent’s systems? We were operating in substantially uncharted territory where the stakes couldn’t be higher. To my knowledge, no one in the Obama White House was ever informed by the FBI or Justice Department that they had opened an investigation into whether anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia on its election interference. I learned of the fact of the investigation only after leaving office, when FBI director James Comey testified before Congress to that effect. Still, the pressure we faced through the late summer and fall of 2016 in confronting the unprecedented scope of Russian electoral interference was enormous. Each step of the way, we made the best decisions we could for the right reasons. Yet we knew at the time we could never make every judgment flawlessly, and we did not, as is evident with the benefit of hindsight.
As I reflect on the course of President Obama’s eight-year tenure, I am struck by the degree to which he largely adhered to the principles and priorities he laid out at the start of his presidency. His consistency defied the range of unforeseen challenges we faced—from the Arab Spring to the rise of populist nationalism and elected authoritarians, from the emergence of an ISIS “caliphate” to Brexit, from Russian aggression in Ukraine to its interference in our election. Through an active national security decision-making process, the Obama administration was able largely to manage such complex crises, while at the same time, “put points on the board” by accomplishing important goals that we opted to pursue.
I remain convinced that President Obama’s foreign policy agenda was strategically sound. Ultimately, if inevitably, our record was mixed—though I would argue, on balance, positive. Thou
gh I am very proud of what the administration accomplished, my pride is tempered by recognition of what we may have done better.
We fell short of achieving several important objectives, including closing Guantánamo, even though we reduced the prison population dramatically. To our lasting frustration, Congress consistently blocked Guantánamo’s closure by preventing the transfer of those remaining inmates to maximum security U.S. facilities. We were also unable to resolve the conflict in Syria, stabilize Libya, or move the needle on intractable, inherited challenges such as brokering Israeli-Palestinian peace or eliminating North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Our failures had various roots. In some cases, we suffered from a mismatch between our stated objectives and the means we were prepared to employ to achieve them—as in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and, arguably, Afghanistan. During the Arab Spring and in the president’s 2009 Cairo speech, we inadvertently raised expectations about the speed and ease with which major change could occur in the Middle East and the role that U.S. policy could play. Elsewhere, we remained reluctant to exert maximum pressure on our partners to take steps they resisted—whether on the Saudis to end the war in Yemen or the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate in good faith. Finally, short of using force, we were unable to persuade or compel determined dictators—from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un—to abandon hostile policies that bolstered their domestic power and international standing.
