Donald Trump appears to have backed away from working with Russia to create a cybersecurity unit to guard against election hacking following widespread criticism of the idea.
The US president had said in a Sunday morning tweet that he and Vladimir Putin had discussed “forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe,” following their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Three Republican senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Mario Rubio of Florida – immediately criticised the idea, saying Moscow could not be trusted after its alleged meddling in the 2016 US election, and Trump appeared to backtrack in a tweet later on Sunday.
Graham had told NBC’s Meet the Press that working with Russia on cybersecurity was “not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” saying that Trump’s apparent willingness to “forgive and forget” stiffened his resolve to pass legislation imposing sanctions on Russia.
“There has been no penalty,” McCain, who chairs the Senate armed services committee, told CBS’s Face the Nation. “Vladimir Putin … got away with literally trying to change the outcome … of our election.”
“Yes, it’s time to move forward. But there has to be a price to pay,” he added.
Rubio, who contested the 2016 Republican primaries against Trump, criticised the idea in a series of tweets that compared it to working with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, on a chemical weapons unit.
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union program Russia could not be a credible partner in a cyber security unit.
“If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow,” Schiff added.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, earlier defended the move, arguing that working with Russia on cybersecurity “doesn’t mean we ever trust Russia”.
“We can’t trust Russia and we won’t ever trust Russia. But you keep those that you don’t trust closer so that you can always keep an eye on ‘em and keep them in check.”
“Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections,” she said.
Trump had argued for rapprochement with Moscow in his campaign but has been unable to deliver because his administration has been dogged by investigations into the allegations of Russian interference in the election and ties with his campaign.
Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.
Trump had tweet that he “strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it.”
(THEGUARDIAN US)
