Venable's Managing Director of Cybersecurity Services, Ari Schwartz, appeared on the January 1, 2017, broadcast of CNN Newsroom to discuss Russia's hacking of emails of top Democratic organizations and officials and releasing them to WikiLeaks in an effort to influence the 2016 election. While intelligence officials agree that Russia was behind the hacks, President-Elect Donald Trump has questioned the accuracy of their assessment. Schwartz said the intelligence community tends to be very conservative about these situations and the fact that there is such a large consensus indicates that Russia was mostly likely behind the hacks.
Appearing on MSNBC on January 5, 2017, while a Senate committee was hearing testimony from intelligence officials, Schwartz echoed his earlier remarks saying the intelligence community takes a long and cautious approach to their assessments. He also pointed to two private sector companies that came to the same conclusion about Russia last summer as further evidence to support what has been said by intelligence officials.