Obama feared a response to Russian cyber attacks on election would make matters worse

Bill Gertz:
Despite an unprecedented Russian intelligence operation to influence the 2016 presidential election, former President Barack Obama rejected a plan to conduct retaliatory cyber action against Moscow during the campaign, according to former CIA Director John Brennan.

Brennan disclosed Saturday that Obama opposed a plan to carry out "a cyber event" against the Russians because the former president feared the action would lead to more aggressive interference by Moscow.

"There was consideration about rattling their cages with some type of cyber event," Brennan said during remarks to a journalism conference at the University of California Berkeley.

But based on Obama's fears, the planned cyber action was shelved in favor issuing vague warnings to Russian officials. Brennan did not elaborate on the cyber retaliation plan.

"President Obama was the ultimate decision-maker on that," Brennan said of the lack of response.

The former CIA director defended the Obama administration's handling of what is widely viewed as a significant counterintelligence failure during the presidential election.

After the election, Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian intelligence officers.
...
The disclosure that Obama scrapped a cyber plan to retaliate against Moscow for election interference comes as a former senior counterintelligence official, Michelle Van Cleave, revealed in congressional testimony last week that the Obama administration weakened American counterintelligence programs by downgrading a top counterspy office.
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I suspect that Obama's real fear was that if events got dicey it would lead to the questioning of Hillary Clinton's legitimacy if she won.  When she lost, he allowed his minions to use to question Trump's legitimacy.

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