President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order authorizing a broad range of sanctions on individuals, companies or countries found to be interfering with U.S. elections.
During a conference call with reporters John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser and Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, confirmed that the president signed the order and outlined how the sanctions process would work.
The officials emphasized that the executive order will punish not merely attempts to interfere with election infrastructure, but also disinformation campaigns and propaganda from foreign actors.
Trump's executive order also includes the declaration of a National Emergency, which creates an umbrella under which a multi-agency intelligence review plan would be enacted to determine the scope and origin of interference.
"We've seen not just Russia and China, but capabilities from Iran and even from North Korea," Coats said, but said that so far, attacks on the 2018 elections do not equal "the intensity of what happened in 2016." Still, he said, "it's only a keyboard click away."
Coats declined to detail exactly what the intelligence community has seen so far, but said it includes both "capability and attempts."
"This is a further effort to protect the United States from foreign interference in our elections and our political process more broadly," Bolton said. "The president felt very strongly about this, and we talked about this weeks and weeks ago."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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