President Biden has refused to answer a question about if hackers were paid a multi-million dollar ransom to bring the Colonial Pipeline back online. While speaking to reporters on Thursday, he simple replied “no comment” when pressed on the issue.
During his speech, the President said fuel is starting to flow and should be getting to complete operational capacity “as we speak.” He then asked for Americans to stay calm, saying that things will return to normal soon.
He also said the effects will not be seen in gas prices immediately. And he took advantage of the hacker attack to push his infrastructure plans as well as his bipartisan discussions on his plan later that day.
.@POTUS on Colonial Pipeline: "Fuel is beginning to flow…They should be reaching full operational capacity as we speak…this is not like flicking on a light switch…we expect to see a region by region return to normalcy beginning this weekend." pic.twitter.com/25ySWVMuL3
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 13, 2021
Biden continued to say he thinks the Russian government was not connected, but the ransomware group responsible for the attack is possibly run by criminals inside Russia. He also said the DOJ is launching an anti-ransomware task force to deal with such incidents.
Author: Scott Dowdy