NSA chief: Now is ‘not the best time’ for US-Russia cyber unit

Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, cast doubt Saturday on the prospect of a Russia-U.S. cybersecurity unit, saying now “is probably not the best time” for such an endeavor, according to Reuters.

President Trump floated the idea earlier this month of a joint cybersecurity working group, saying he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin the creation of “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to guard against election hacking and other cyber threats.

But several lawmakers in Congress quickly shot down the idea of such a group, and Trump later walked back his statement on the unit. 

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“The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can, [and] did!” the president wrote on Twitter.

Rogers’s comments, made at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, come amid ongoing investigations into Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 race, as well as possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

In a report made public in January, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the Kremlin sought to swing the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor by operating a hacking and influence campaign.

Trump met with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this month, where Trump reportedly pressed the Russian leader on the election meddling accusations, which Putin denied.