The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., called Russia's election-year hack an attack on America, repeating the refrain: "Russia is not our friend."
"They have interfered in Europe, they've compromised the boundaries of European countries, they've attacked Europe institutions, and now they've attacked America," Cardin told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union."
"We've got to take action."
Sen. Cardin is encouraged there is "bipartisan interest" in investigating Russia's involvement in the election.
"What we do know is Russia hacked us — that we do know," Cardin told Tapper. "They made information available during the election in order to have an impact on our election. What we need to do now is have that type of investigation to find out what we should do about Russia.
". . . They certainly wanted to compromise our democratic institutions, that's clear. We've seen that in Europe. Whether they were trying to elect Donald Trump, that's something we need to take a look at. Clearly, there's been reports that was part of their motive. We need to find out and then take action. Russia is not our friend."
Cardin added President-elect Donald Trump needs to avoid being "naive" on Russia and President Vladimir Putin in an effort to "undermine America."
"They are a bully," Cardin told Tapper. "It's a corrupt regime, and we need to stand strong. That's why it was important to work with our European allies to try to isolate Russia as we did with sanctions. We need to be very strong in our play against Russia."
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