GOP lawmakers urge action by Trump administration against hackers

Republican committee leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are urging the Trump administration to impose consequences on China-linked hackers who have targeted U.S. institutions, including sanctions.

“We applaud your administration’s work to ramp up the investigation and prosecution of these cybercriminals. To send a clear message to the PRC, however, we also encourage you to consider utilizing your ability under existing authorities to sanction PRC-linked hackers, as your administration has repeatedly against other foreign persons,” the GOP lawmakers wrote to President Donald Trump. “To date, Treasury has not sufficiently imposed such sanctions on PRC actors for cyber-attacks on Americans or those entities in the PRC that benefit from cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, but we believe the time may be ripe for considering such action. These actions must have consequences. If we do not utilize our sanctions strategically in response to bad acts, our sanctions regime loses its deterrent effect, and we will only see these cyber-attacks from the PRC further escalate.”

The letter was sent by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the Republican leader on the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the Republican leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), GOP leader on the House Financial Services Committee.

The lawmakers requested a classified briefing from the Departments of Treasury and State, as well as any other agencies deemed appropriate with information on these attacks.