Republican senator says Trump has ‘blind spot’ on Russia, calls hack ‘extraordinarily damaging’

The US president on Saturday tried to undercut the assertions of top government officials, including State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who had suggested that Russia was behind the massive cyberattack.

Republican US Senator Mitt Romney said a widespread data breach across the US government was “extraordinarily damaging” and that President Donald Trump has a “blind spot” when it comes to Russia, which US officials believe was behind the hack.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to US President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. (REUTERS)

“We’ve come to recognize that the president has a blind spot when it comes to Russia,” Romney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” one of a series of Sunday morning TV interviews.

US Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on ABC that the cyberattack could still be going on and that officials had not yet determined its full scope.

Both men said that the United States must respond to the incident.