US Senators and Congressmen criticize idea of forming a group on cyber security with Russia
Influential senators and members of the House of Representatives of the US Congress have criticized the idea of creating a joint working group with Russia on cyber security, believing that Moscow should not be trusted in this sphere. They announced this on Sunday while speaking on a number of American TV channels.
"I don’t think we can expect the Russians to be any kind of a credible partner in some cyber-security unit," said Adam Schiff (D-CA) on CNN. Schiff is the Ranking Member (senior democrat) of the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives.
He also questioned whether US President Donald Trump “pressed hard" on Vladimir Putin while discussing the issue of alleged Moscow interference in the US elections with the Russian leader during a meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg. "How can we believe that President [Trump] seriously 'pressed Putin hard' when only the day before he was denying that we really knew that Russia was responsible" for interfering with American election processes, questioned the Congressman. Schiff was referring to Trump's recent speech in Warsaw, where the president said that the answer to the question of the impact on the US elections was unknown, despite US intelligence reports on this topic.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that creating a joint group on cyber security with Russia is "not the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but it's pretty close." Speaking on the air on NBC, Graham also claimed that Trump was "literally the one person" he knows of [in Washington] that "has any doubt about what Russia did in [2016]". The Senator spoke about the alleged interference of the Russian Federation in last year's elections in the US, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.
Meanwhile, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said that while "reality & pragmatism requires that we engage Vladimir Putin, he will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner“. Rubio also criticized the idea of cooperation with the Russian Federation on cyber security on his Twitter.
Putin, following the results of the G20 summit in Hamburg, announced an agreement with Trump on the creation of a working group in the field of cyber security. According to him, they agreed that they will work on how to "jointly control security in the field of cyberspace, how to ensure unconditional compliance with international legal norms in this area, and how to prevent interference in the internal affairs of foreign states."