Ex-Sen. Bob Graham: The U.S. should withdraw its ambassador if Russia hacked DNC

The former Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wednesday that the United States should withdraw its ambassador from Moscow if it is determined that the Russian government hacked Democratic National Committee computers.

“I think the possibility that [the Russians] are going to try to influence the outcome of an American presidential election is totally outrageous and unacceptable,” former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida said in an interview with Yahoo News at the Democratic National Convention.

If the FBI conclusively determines that the Russian government was behind the cyberattack on the DNC, there should be severe consequences, Graham said.

“One, we would probably withdraw our ambassador from Moscow,” Graham said. In addition, he argued that the U.S. should “look for what would be an appropriate sanction from this. For a long time, we had very severe economic sanctions against Russia. Those might be restored.”

Asked if he believed those are the actions the U.S. government ought to take, Graham responded: “I think those are two of the things that should happen. I would leave it up to the State Department and the National Security Council and others to see if there are other ways to influence Russia to withdraw from its attempts to influence the presidential election.”

Graham was also asked during the interview about Donald Trump’s remarks at a news conference earlier in the day that appeared to encourage Russia’s cyberspies to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing” from Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

“He’s inviting somebody to engage in a felony,” Graham said of the Republican presidential nominee. “He’s asking for a Russian figure to commit espionage against the United States. And I think it’s a terrible commentary on a person at the threshold of becoming president of the United States and commander in chief to be making such rash statements.”

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