The White House continues to stand by the intelligence community in blaming Russia over the election hacks -- and the punishment it dolled out.
But critics wonder what made the Obama Administration finally move on sanctions, when it barely reacted to a hack on more than 20 million government employees that was linked to China.
Fox News’ Kevin Corke has some answers from the White House.
“Materially different.” That’s how White House officials described allegations of hacking conducted by the Chinese and Russian governments.
A distinction that guided the Obama Administration’s very public rebuke of Russia for its alleged meddling in the run up to the 2016 election – and its almost muted response to the Chinese OPM hack that compromised the private information of tens of millions of Americans.
“I’m not suggesting that somehow that’s not important. What I’m just saying is it’s materially different than the kind of hack and leak strategy we saw the Russians engage in to try to influence our democracy,” Josh Earnest said.
To suggest the U.S. responses were in stark contrast would be an understatement. This time, the administration expelled operatives, shut down facilities, issued a report to Congress and made direct contact with Vladimir Putin.
“What we can also do is to, on a bilateral basis, warn other countries against these kinds of attacks. And we’ve done that in the past,” President Obama said.
Indeed, experts suggest the U.S. strategy for China was a years-long series of diplomatic and legal efforts – a far cry from the decision to publicly humiliate Moscow.
“I think it had a lot to do, it’s coming to the end of the term. There’s issues of legacy, there are optics that are critically important, to be able to back up their assertions about Russian cyber operations against American political entities.”
And while there have been conflicting reports about Russia’s involvement in the hacks, analysts believe the White House had little choice but to make an example out of the Kremlin.
“The notion that you have to wait for absolute proof about something before you act is a bad formula to use in international relations. You never have absolute proof, and if you’re simply waiting for more information, more intelligence, you’re letting events dictate your policy rather than you dictating it.”
Senior administration officials say the crux of their argument is simply this: While the Chinese stole for intelligence purposes, the Russians actually tried to use the stolen data as sort of a weaponized way to influence the U.S. election – and they say that means that the U.S. response to what Russia did isn’t over yet.