Richard Ben-Veniste was a member of the 9/11 Commission and a former federal prosecutor and Assistant Watergate Prosecutor; Raj De served as Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, was Staff Secretary to President Obama and was General Counsel for the National Security Agency. Both are partners at Mayer Brown in Washington, DC. The opinions expressed in this commentary are their own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) Earlier this month, the Department of Justice, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, issued a detailed, fact-filled indictment of twelve Russian military intelligence officials charged with crimes related to the conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 election.

The gravity of the Russian government's cyberattack on America's most fundamental democratic institution -- free and open elections -- should raise the kind of urgency that surrounded the 9/11 attack. Whereas the attack in 2001 targeted our nation's then vulnerable physical icons, the attack in 2016 targeted our nation's still vulnerable digital infrastructure.

The parallel has begun to resonate. Speaking to an audience within hours of the return of the grand jury's indictment, no less an authority than Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats publicly raised the alarm. The former long-serving Republican senator, congressman, diplomat, and President Trump's pick for DNI, Coats warned that the danger of cyberattacks on our national infrastructure is akin to the warnings that our intelligence community received prior to the 9/11 attacks -- using the same chilling language that haunted us for failing to prevent the devastation of 9/11. "It was in the months prior to September 2001 when, according to then-CIA Director George Tenet, the system (was) blinking red. And here we are nearly two decades later, and I'm here to say, the warning lights are blinking red again." Whereas the enemy then was al Qaeda, according to DNI Coats, our most aggressive cyber adversary today is Russia.

As this blunt warning was issued by our senior intelligence official, and as the American people were provided a roadmap to the 2016 Russian attack on our democracy in the form of the special counsel's latest indictment, President Trump completed a tumultuous NATO appearance and a divisive visit to our nation's closet transatlantic ally before departing for a private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

President Trump joked that he did not anticipate a " Perry Mason " confession from the man who is almost certainly responsible for ordering the cyberattack on American democracy. And, as he has countless times previously, the President again referred to the investigation into the Russian attack on America as a " witch hunt ." But this is neither a witch hunt nor a joking matter.

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