Pompeo explains why it's 'wiser' for Trump to keep quiet about suspected Russia hack

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday night during an appearance on the Mark Levin Show that "we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged" in a recently discovered cyberattack that breached dozens of federal agencies and companies. He added that while "we're still unpacking precisely" what happened, "this was a very significant effort," marking a slight change in tone for the secretary who had previously suggested the hack may not have been out of the ordinary.

The New York Times notes that Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to suggest the Kremlin was behind the attack, even after intelligence agencies have told Congress they suspect Russia's own elite intelligence agency, the S.V.R, was behind it. Russia has denied involvement.

President Trump has yet to address the issue, and Pompeo told Levin that he may keep quiet during the investigation. "I saw this in my time running the world's premier espionage service at the CIA," he said. "There are many things that you'd very much love to say, 'Boy, I'm going to call that out,' but a wiser course of action to protect the American people is to calmly go about your business and defend freedom." Read more at NBC News and The New York Times.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.