The ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee have all issued calls for Obama to “seek justice” for the alleged attack.
But should Obama publicly point the finger at the Kremlin, it could expose covert intelligence capabilities and damage already touchy discussions over Russia’s behavior in Syria and Ukraine, experts say.
The FBI has opened an investigation into the hack, but because of the risks, experts say, the public is unlikely to ever know the results, even if it is able to prove Russia’s guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But it is next to impossible to attribute any cyberattack with absolute certainty, security experts say, and the White House may be unwilling to go that far without definitive proof.
The U.S. could hack back at Russia.
Another consideration Obama has with a cyberattack is that it would likely be done in secret, meaning he would continue to face pressure to respond to Russia.
The White House could employ a similar tactic with Russia — either imposing sanctions or leveraging the threat of sanctions — but experts note that the U.S.’s financial ties with Russia are far shallower than its ties with China.
Because there are many sanctions already in place, the impact of such a tactic would be limited. It could anger Putin without exacting any meaningful punishment.
But the move did prompt China to walk away from cybersecurity discussions with the U.S. Beijing eventually came back to the table, but not until a year later.
One thing that Obama could do is put out a general public statement drawing a red line at attacks on the electoral system.
Perhaps the most likely response to the hack is that State Department officials will raise the issue with their Russian counterparts, something that Secretary of State John Kerry has already done.
“I raised the question, and we will continue to work to see precisely what those facts are,” Kerry said last month.
Both the White House and the Kremlin have suggested that the hack — and whatever action the U.S. might take in response — would only be symptomatic of an already frayed diplomatic relationship.