Retired Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the head of the U.S. National Security Agency during the 2016 election, said he wishes the NSA reacted differently to Russia meddling in the race.
Adm. Rogers, who simultaneously led the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command under former President Barack Obama, opened up about the election in a recent interview with NPR aired Tuesday.
He indicated the U.S. intelligence community was not entirely understanding of the Russian threat during the last election.
“While we had some level of knowledge in the summer of 2016, I don’t think we fully appreciated the level of effort, particularly on the social media side,” he told NPR.
Adm. Rogers, who retired in May 2018, also took issue with how the intelligence community waited until afterward to publicly raise concerns about Russian interference in the race.
“I wish we had taken more direct, more public action sooner as opposed to doing so after the election itself,” Adm. Rogers told NPR.
The U.S. intelligence community assessed leading up to the 2016 presidential election that Russia was interfering in the race and accordingly notified congressional leaders.
Americans were not told of the assessment until early 2017, however, weeks before President Trump took office as a result of defeating Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the race.
New policies enacted during the Trump administration have subsequently made it easier for the U.S to conduct offensive cyberattacks against foreign adversaries such as Russia.
Indeed, Paul M. Nakasone, Adm. Roger’s successor, wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday that those changes “disrupted a concerted effort to undermine the midterm elections” in 2018.
“Together with its partners, Cyber Command is doing all of this and more for the 2020 elections,” Mr. Nakasone wrote for Foreign Affairs.
Russia is using a range of measures to denigrate Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden ahead of November’s election, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned earlier this month. Iran and China want Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump in the race, the intelligence community also assessed.
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