Is America preparing for Russia’s next onslaught?

We need to thoroughly investigate Russian cyberattacks on our country and meddling in our election, not just to get a handle on exactly what they did and how they did it, but more importantly, to stop it from continuing to happen.

Because it is continuing to happen.

{mosads}The day after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump’s own top two intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russian cyberattacks were the number one threat facing this nation — and that they will continue and get worse.

Dan Coats, Trump’s director of national intelligence, and CIA head Mike Pompeo echoed the warnings from the latest annual worldwide threat assessment from the nation’s intelligence agencies that Russian attacks will continue. Pompeo said, “I hope we learn from as well and will be able to more effectively defeat it.”

It’s part of a brazen pattern of continuing Russian attacks not only upon us, but upon our allies and fellow democracies. There was an attack during the recent French elections — in a manner shockingly and disturbingly like the attacks on Hillary Clinton’s campaign this last fall. The attacks on America’s elections may have helped tip the election to Donald Trump. The attacks in the French elections didn’t appear to swing the result of the voting, but they’re meant to have other long-term and insidious effects.

It seems that both sets of attacks were done by the same players, using the same methods, with the same goals — to damage and destabilized Western democracies and weaken alliances that threaten the Kremlin. Why should they change tactics? Their methods have worked, and we seem unwilling to take action to stop them.

Two days before the French people went to the polls, the campaign of presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was the victim of a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack involving the theft and posting of huge amounts of internal campaign documents. “Déjà vu” is French, right?

Macron was in a runoff campaign against the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, who, like Trump, has numerous affinities to Putin and Russia. In a statement, the Macron campaign said “this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilization, as was seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign.”

The experts agree. Leading cybersecurity firms believe Macron was targeted by what appeared to be the same Russian hackers who went after us at the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign last fall. The cyber-sleuths earlier spotted what they believed to be hackers associated with a Russian intelligence unit “fishing” for passwords from people in the Macron campaign.

How many times will we let this happen? In a recent interview with Christiane Amanpour of CNN, Hillary Clinton said “He (Russian President Vladimir Putin) certainly interfered in our election. And it’s clear he interfered to hurt me and help my opponent.” What’s not so clear is whether her opponent helped Putin hurt her and help him.

Meanwhile, the attacks will continue here at home as well as with our allies around the world. In testimony on Capitol Hill in the week before Trump fired him, Comey said, “I think one of the lessons that the Russians may have drawn from this is that this works, and so, as I said last month or so ago, I expect to see them back in 2018, especially in 2020.” Comey called Russia “the greatest threat of any nation on earth” to our democracy.

We’ve been warned. 

These remarks by Comey — who at the time was leading the investigation into Russia’s interference in our own election — were a chilling warning that Russia likely feels empowered by its success in meddling in our democracy. Days later, Trump fired him. That same week, on the very day that his intelligence leaders were on Capitol Hill warning of Russian cyber-aggression, Trump was tweeting out that the concern over Russian interference was “a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election.” What kind of message does this send the Kremlin?

The Trump White House just wants the investigations to go away. White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “We want this to come to its conclusion, we want it to come to its conclusion with integrity, and we think that we’ve actually, by removing Director Comey, taken steps to make that happen.”

They’re treating the outcry against Russian meddling as a partisan threat or as an attack on the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. It is not. It’s an attempt to defend the integrity of our elections and to our very democracy — things that every American should rightfully cherish.

As then-Director Comey warned, if we don’t stop this now, they will do it again. The question is, who is the next Hillary Clinton? Will they target lawmakers who seek to end the attacks? Who espouse policies that stand up to Russian aggression? Or anyone who is for a strong and united Western alliance to thwart Vladimir Putin’s plans? Also, potentially at risk next time are our voter registration systems and databases, and the integrity of our voting machines.

Since we’re giving them free rein, they can afford to play the long game and cheerfully meddle in our elections and spread disinformation in an attempt to undermine voters trust in our democracy and democratic institutions.

It’s crucial to note that at the time of the attacks in France, Emmanuel Macron had a sizable lead over right-winger Le Pen in the polls. He was fully expected to win and ended up doing so easily. But the reasons for the Russian attacks both in France and here go far beyond merely affecting the outcome. The Russians persist in their interference because, win or lose, they stand to gain simply by chipping away at the credibility of free elections and undermining leaders like Macron or Hillary Clinton, who have the guts to stand up to Putin’s thuggery. Like most everyone, the Russians fully expected Hillary Clinton to win in November. Their attacks on her were meant to undermine both her coming presidency and the institutions of democracy itself. 

That’s their ultimate goal — to destroy the democracies whose existence is the biggest threat to Putin-style authoritarian rule. As Americans, we ALL have a stake in that democracy, and an obligation to insist that our elected officials properly investigate and take action to end these attacks that threaten us all.

Donna Brazile (@DonnaBrazile) served as chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2016-17. She is presently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.