Sen. Ben Sasse said Friday that the 12 Russian indictments for interfering in the 2016 election proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is not America's friend, and he is not the president's buddy."
"The U.S. intelligence community knows that the Russian government attacked the U.S.," the Nebraska Republican, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Twitter:
"This is not a Republican or a Democrat view — it is simply the reality."
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced Friday that the 12 Russian military intelligence officers were charged with hacking into the accounts of the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton's campaign and other party operatives during the 2016 presidential election.
The stolen information was then released through fake accounts — DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0, among them — by the Russians in the weeks before voters went to the polls that November.
The 29-page indictment did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved or that any Americans were knowingly in contact with the Russians.
The charges were announced before President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, Finland.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump and Putin will meet as planned.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said the Kremlin "attempted to sow the seeds of discord, undermine the fundamentals of our democracy and challenge the reliability of the 2016 election.
"As I have repeatedly said, it is clear, based on the evidence, Russia had disdain for Secretary Clinton and was motivated in whole or in part by a desire to harm her candidacy or undermine her presidency had she prevailed," Gowdy said in a statement.
He added said he was "pleased Russia is being held accountable for their actions against our country."
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce of California said Trump should "use the indictments to challenge Vladimir Putin.
"We need Putin to change course on a range of issues, including election interference, his aggression in Ukraine and his support for the murderous Assad regime in Syria," Royce said in a statement.
"We can't afford to give an inch of ground in defending democracy."
Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said the indictments made clear that "the Russians launched an attack on our electoral system with the goal of spreading distrust and undermining our democracy.
"Any breach of our political organizations, regardless of party, is an affront to all of us — and we should come together as Americans to prevent it from ever happening again."
However, McDaniel's statement also noted that the charges also proved that "there was no collusion by the Trump campaign and that the Russians were ultimately unsuccessful in altering the results of the election.
"The American people have watched the president's political opponents desperately search for evidence of collusion for years now.
"While it's important that we do all we can to safeguard our future elections, it's long past time for investigations into non-existent collusion to end."
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