A detailed reconstruction of Russian-directed hacking during the U.S. elections has revealed how the White House rejected robust responses that might have gotten Moscow's attention, along with a series of party missteps that allowed the intrusion to proliferate unabated.
The White House did not hold the first Situation Room meetings about the hack until July, the New York Times revealed in a detailed report on how the hack unfolded. That was several months after the initial intrusion into the computers of the Democratic National Committee, which is believed to have occurred in April.
Ultimately, that hack would result in the release of thousands of embarrassing documents in the midst of a heated political campaign – and forcing the resignation of the DNC chair on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
As the scope and origins of the cyber attack became more clear, the White House considered, but rejected the most robust responses that would have sent a strong signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
'Possible' counterstrikes that were 'reportedly included,' according to the paper, were going after Putin, a former KGB agent, to expose his financial links to wealthy oligarchs, and punching holes in the Russian internet to let dissidents spread their views.
'Pentagon officials judged the measures too unsubtle and ordered up their own set of options,' according to the paper. None of those ideas were 'formally presented' to President Obama.
Top security officials who met in the White House about the intrusion that roiled Hillary Clinton's campaign feared an overreaction by the U.S. might actually help Putin.
'If we went to Defcon 4,' said one government official, using the nuclear warning code, 'we would be saying to the public that we didn't have confidence in the integrity of our voting system.'
The White House wouldn't say Wednesday if it had taken action since.
'I'm not in a position to confirm whether or not that response has been initiated or not,' press secretary Josh Earnest said. 'I'm also not in a position to confirm that we won't ever in the future discuss what that response is or what that response may be.
Earnest claimed that the intelligence community waited until October to accuse Russia of hacking in public because it needed to run the assessment by 17 agencies and confirm with 'high confidence' that Putin's affiliates were behind the hack.
'It would've been inappropriate for White House figures, including the president of the United States, to be rushing the intelligence community, to expedite their analysis of the situation because we were concerned about the negative impact it was having on the president's preferred candidate in the presidential election,' Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest, said.
'That would've been all the more damaging in an environment in which you have the Republican nominee, without evidence, suggesting that the election is rigged.'
Earnest said the White House was 'deeply concerned' about masking the intelligence communities methods before it made the report available to the public.
It was also focused on 'insulating the intelligence community from the kind of political pressure' obvious to anyone following the election, he said.
Former DNC staffer Yared Tamene got a call from the FBI about the hack, but had doubts about the authenticity of the person on the other end of the phone
President Obama warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about the election intrusions at a summit in September. The two are pictured here in 2015
Campaign chairman John Podesta became the victim of a cyber attack when he was sent an email claiming to be from Google in March saying he needed to change his password
One of Podesta's aides forwarded the email to computer technician Charles Delavan to check whether the message was legitimate
The email claimed to be from Google and told him he needed to change his password immediately because someone had tried to access his account
The White House official shot back at a Times reporter asking the White House for a response to the report that it may not have mattered, in terms of how the hacks were covered, if the administration had come forward with the information sooner.
'I think it actually is an open question about whether it would've made a difference,' he said.
Earnest contended that 'news organizations in United States essentially became the arms of Russian intelligence' when they promoted the stolen emails belonging to Democratic Party officials.
Hacked DNC emails did not surface until July of 2016. The DNC was alerted to suspicious behavior by the FBI in 2015.
The DNC tech official who took a call from the FBI after the initial intrusion was detected in September 2015 was dubious.
'I had no way of differentiating the call I just received from a prank call,' the contracting official who took the call, Yared Tamene, wrote in an internal memo obtained by the paper.
A Clinton staffer made a fateful error when he made a typo in an email message to Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta of a possible phishing scam that was part of the hack.
'This is a legitimate email,' Charles Delavan, warned a Podesta aide. 'John needs to change his password immediately.'
When Podesta clicked the link, it ultimately led to the release of 60,000 emails from his personal account, many of them embarrassing and harmful to Clinton's effort.
An April 29, 2016 DNC email warned: 'Not sure it is related to what the F.B.I. has been noticing. The D.N.C. may have been hacked in a serious way this week, with password theft, etc.'
Contractors that the party hired quickly determined that Russia was the suspect behind the hack.
Delavan explained that he meant to write that the it was an 'illegitimate email,' an error the Times says has plagued him since.
The attacks are believed to be the culmination of decades of Russian-backed attacks dating to 1996, which also included hits on regional rivals including Estonia and Ukraine.
There were delays in a formal 'attribution report' directly pointing to Russia.
'It took forever,' complained one senior official.
In August, the head of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was pushing for a strong response.
Even moves like having the president place new sanctions on the hackers were avoided.
Charles Delavan wrote that a phishing email was 'legitimate' instead of illegitimate
'No one was all that eager to impose costs before Election Day,' said a participant in White House national security meetings. 'Any retaliatory measures were seen through the prism of what would happen on Election Day.'
'We just kept hearing the government would respond, the government would respond,' acting DNC chair Donna Brazile. 'Once upon a time, if a foreign government interfered with our election we would respond as a nation, not as a political party.'
Obama elected to give an in-person warning to Putin at a summit meeting in Hangzhou, China in early September, informing his counterpart that interference in the election or manipulating the vote would invite a strong U.S. response.
Vice President Joe Biden hinted at cover responses.
Former deputy CIA director Michael Morrell, who supported Clinton, says any response needed to be overt to get the message across.
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