Biden needs to make clear to Putin that cyberattacks will have consequences: Rep. McCaul

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas argued the Biden administration needs to "hit back" and respond with a "cyber-offensive attack' against Russia's alleged involvement in U.S. cyberattacks Wednesday on "America Reports." 

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: You cannot somehow dissect Putin from these criminal organizations in Russia. They carry out these ransomware attacks. It's all interrelated with the oligarchs in Russia. Perhaps he didn't give direct approval, but certainly tacit approval to say that Putin was unaware of this and doesn't benefit from these attacks I think is a very naive perspective of how Russia operates and who Putin really is. So I think the president needs to be very forceful. This is the third ransomware attack in the last couple of weeks. We have to have consequences for his behavior.

I think the president should be very clear to Putin that if these continue, once we do the attribution, which means finding out the source of the attack, that we are going to hit back and we're going to we're going to respond with a cyber-offensive attack that we're very capable of doing as a nation. Only until we have that threat to Putin and the Russian criminal organizations will this bad behavior stop. Otherwise, it will continue.

… Remember, this is a first meeting with a leader of a foreign country, in this case, a foreign adversary in their country, not in the United States. So it's a very significant development. And I hope the president brings up these issues. But at the energy policy alone is the hypocrisy just mystifies me that we're going to be shutting down the Keystone pipeline, but allowing Putin to complete his pipeline into Europe, making them more energy-dependent on Russia, not the United States. And it's a far dirtier form of energy as well.

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