“The president has a blind spot when it comes to Russia, and so you can expect him to be the answer.” Asked about a tweet by Trump dismissing his secretary, Romney told CNN’s Jack Tapper “State of the Union” assessment of the state’s massive hack.
“This is a big wake-up call for us and I think when it comes to cyberspace we really need to rethink our military and national security readiness, because this is the war of the future and I hope we get to the best of our ability. Expect the strongest, greatest nation on, ”the Utah Republican added.
At least half a dozen federal agencies are now known to have been targeted in breaches of the Homeland Security cyber arm and the Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and the State Department. Investigators are still trying to determine if government data could be hacked or stolen, if any.
Romney just said that cybertech puts the US in a vulnerable position, and suggested that the country should react strongly.
“What Russia has done is put us potentially crippled in terms of our electricity, our water, our communications,” he said. “This is the same kind of thing that one can do in a war period setting and so it is extraordinarily dangerous and it is an outrageous confrontation over our sovereignty and it has to be met with a very strong reaction, not a rhetorical one, but with cyber response. Such as intensity or more. “
Agencies are not ‘optimized for defense’
Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told Tapper later in the program that federal agencies are not currently “optimized for defense” and that one of the reasons his former agency did not detect the hack was to bill. Some officials have not yet been signed by Trump to aggressively root out protesters.
“There is a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act … it is sitting at the President’s desk waiting for his signature … which will let the CISA, my old agency, officials go out and hunt really aggressively and find these protesters.” “And that’s what we have to do to get certainty on the other side of this,” the former cyber chief said.
Flynn suggested last week that Trump may seek martial law as part of his efforts to overthrow the election, and during the meeting White House aides pushed for the idea of naming Powell as special adviser to investigate allegations of voter fraud. Fired.
Romney, a frequent critic of Trump, slammed Trump’s ongoing efforts to invalidate the election results.
The story has been updated with additional details on Sunday.
CNN’s Veronica Straklursi, Kevin Liptak, Jennifer Hensler and Nicky Roberts contributed to this report.
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