The difference is that without needing it as a cudgel to beat the legitimacy of Trump over the head, it didn’t mean a damn to Obama.
Via Free Beacon:
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked multiple times on Tuesday why the Obama administration did not have the same public reaction to the 2015 Office of Personnel Management hack by China that it is currently having towards Russia for its cyber breaches during the 2016 presidential election.
Earnest tried to stress that both attacks were important but different during the White House daily press briefing.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl first referenced the retaliatory steps the administration took against Russia last week, which included expelling 35 Russian diplomats and imposing more sanctions.
He asked if there was insufficient evidence to show Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the election-related hackings since his name was not on the sanctions list.
Earnest said this was not correct but added that it is hard to name a leader of a country, citing sanctions policies.
Karl then asked why Americans did not get the same public outrage and reaction that Russia is currently receiving when the Chinese hacked the OPM, compromising the records of around 22 million people. Karl said that the administration did “nothing publicly” in response.
“So, when the Chinese hacked OPM in 2015, 21-plus-million current and former government employees and contractors had their personal records stolen by the Chinese,” he said. “Why did the White House do nothing publicly in reaction to that happening? Which, in some ways, was even more widespread than what we saw here from the Russians.”
Earnest said that these situations are “malicious in nature, but materially different.”
Karl jumped back in to remind Earnest that over 20 million people were directly affected by the Chinese data breach into the OPM’s system.