Obama said that Americans should be alarmed by Russia's actions, although we think that most will continue to believe the fake news that Putin’s hacking teams planted instead. After all they ignored the warning he made about it in October. However, it is pretty clear that Obama wants to get the news out before Trump takes office and buries any inquiries.

Obama said the October assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the US election process proved right. The data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government.

He added that US diplomats had experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year.

“Such activities have consequences. Today, I have ordered several actions in response. I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners,” he said.

Using this new authority, he has sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU's cyber operations.

The Secretary of the Treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information. The State Department is also shutting down two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes, and is declaring "persona non-grata" 35 Russian intelligence operatives.

Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the United States and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia's global campaign of malicious cyber activities, Obama said.