President Obama slam med Russia with new sanctions today for meddling in the presidential election to boost the Trump campaign. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Two Russian intelligence agencies, three companies and four individual intelligence officers with singled out and banned from travel and doing business with U.S. companies an individuals.
“The president ordered 35 Russian intelligence operatives posted at diplomatic facilities in Washington and San Francisco out of the country.
He also shuttered two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York used to gather intelligence, according to his statement.
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a 13-page joint report as well. It shed some light on what the agencies know about the Russian actions. More details may follow, according to The New York Times.
The Obama Statement continued:
“These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government,” Obama said on Thursday. “Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year. Such activities have consequences.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan,R-Wis., a frequent critic of the president, congratulated Obama for taking action.
“Russia does not share America’s interests. In fact, it has consistently sought to undermine them, sowing dangerous instability around the world,” he said in his own statement.
His remarks could also be interpreted as a rebuke of Trump, who has praised Putin and repeatedly disputed the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.