Bolton: Obama sanctions on Russia not enough

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton says President Obama’s sanctions on Russia are not a sufficient response to Russia’s “attack on our constitutional system.”

“I don’t think they will have much impact at all,” Bolton told “Fox & Friends” on Friday of Obama’s sanctions, calling for actions that will “make the Russians feel pain.”

“The Russians have walked all over the Obama administration for eight years. It’s really been a pathetic performance.”

Bolton noted that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration could reverse Obama’s actions easily. 

{mosads}He added that if the allegations are true, the Kremlin’s activity is “utterly unacceptable.”

“It is not enough to say — and people should be careful about this — to say, ‘Well, it didn’t actually have an impact on the election,’ ” Bolton said.

“The fact that Russia’s efforts were incompetent or insufficient shouldn’t make us feel better. No — it’s the effort that they made, if this is accurate, that should trouble us, not the fact that it failed.”

The Obama administration on Thursday announced an array of retaliatory measures against Russia for meddling in the presidential election results.

The measures included expulsion of 35 Russian intelligence operatives in the U.S., the shuttering of two diplomatic compounds in New York and Maryland used for intelligence gathering, a slate of economic sanctions, diplomatic censure, public “naming and shaming” and the possibility of covert cyber actions.

The U.S. intelligence community publicly accused Russia of election interference in October. And a secret CIA assessment reportedly concluded that Moscow acted specifically to get Trump elected.

Russia has denied any interference in the election, and Trump has questioned U.S. intelligence findings about Russia’s involvement.