http://observer.com/2016/12/russian-sanctions-obama-kicks-off-cold-war-2-0/Here, President Obama’s release of an unclassified 13-page analysis of how Russian SIGINT was employed against Democrats, then weaponized against Hillary Clinton, thoroughly undermines protests that the Kremlin has clean hands here. The facts are available to anyone who wants to know them. As I’ve explained previously, the issue isn’t “hacking”—every decent spy agency does that in the 21st century—but, rather, how the Kremlin used purloined propaganda for political effect in the United States.
Between now and January 20, the president-elect has a choice to make: to go along with his predecessor’s 11th-hour response to Putin’s interference in our democracy or not? If Trump backs off these rather tame sanctions, he will put himself in direct conflict with many prominent members of his own party, not to mention he will look like he cares more about the Kremlin than our country and its interests. That’s not a position that any rational just-inaugurated president seeks to be in.
