Obama team didn't do 'enough' to combat Russian meddling: Democratic strategist

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Mary Anne Marsh: President Obama did not do enough to protect presidential election

Former President Barack Obama should have done more to combat Russian meddling, even if Senate leadership refused to cooperate, Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh said on Friday's broadcast of "The Daily Briefing."

Marsh, who served as a senior adviser to former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told Fox News host Dana Perino that she didn't "believe the Obama team and President Obama did enough."

Her comments came just after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian attempts to interfere during the 2016 elections. The report brought a renewed focus on how the Obama administration confronted meddling, an issue President Trump highlighted on Thursday.

"Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President," Trump tweeted. "He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected."

Earlier on "The Daily Briefing," former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile defended the former president. Obama, she said, could only do so much, given that additional efforts on his part could have been seen as attempts to help former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the election.

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The former administration also tried getting Congress to release a bipartisan statement on Russian interference in September of 2016 but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rejected the opportunity, saying he doubted the intelligence behind that claim.

For Marsh, however, that didn't excuse the former president from taking further action. "Just because Mitch McConnell refused to sign into a statement — ultimately, any president is the commander in chief and you have to protect our country and our national security," she said.

"To have Russia, a foreign country, interfere in our election — possibly hacking machines — is unacceptable. You can't care what anybody thinks about [why] you're doing it," Marsh added.

The Obama administration did attempt to address Russian interference when it surveilled the Trump campaign during the election.

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That earned the administration intense criticism from conservatives, although Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., one of the leading figures in Congress' Russia investigation, told Fox News earlier that the Obama team shouldn't apologize.

Swalwell pointed to the Mueller report which he said "certainly" showed evidence of collusion and "laid out a multiplicity of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians."