Russia continues to say
Funny how the Republicans decided late afternoon of the day before a mid-summer holiday would be the ideal time to release their report on the Russian interference with the 2016 election.
The report comes five days after Trump seemed to endorse Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denial, in the face of US intelligence agencies’ conclusions, that Russian interfered in the 2016 election: “Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.
We know! Of course they do! People lie sometimes! Russia has been known to lie! The fact that Russia says it doesn’t make it true! Is this the way you did business, taking everyone’s word for everything?!
While Republicans in the House have openlyaimed to discredit the Justice Department’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russian ties, Tuesday’s seven-page report saw the Senate committee’s Republicans siding with US intelligence and law enforcement, including the FBI.
However reluctantly and 3 p.m. on the 3d of Julyly.
The report endorses the January 6, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA, finding Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 with the goals of undermining Americans’ faith in the democratic process and denigrating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The assessment also concludes that Russia “developed a clear preference for” Trump.
“The ICA is a sound intelligence product,” the committee says, noting it was produced after “reasonable, transparent and open” debate. The committee said intelligence analysts they interviewed reported “no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions,” and noted that the CIA and FBI had “high confidence” that Russia favored Trump, while the National Security Agency had “moderate confidence.”
Senators are there for a minimum of six years; that probably makes them a little less flaky than Representatives.
It also helps that they’re elected by entire states, rather than gerrymandered districts. Certainly states can be more or less peculiar in their politics, but they’re not carefully designed to be.
“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!”
But did Putin say “Cross my heart and hope to die?”
FFS.
Jeff – well yes but then there’s the problem that 2 are elected by states like California and Texas with tens of millions of people and 2 are elected by states like Montana and Wyoming with fewer than ONE million people.
Well yes. We have proportionate political power divided into politically skewed chunks in the House, and disproportionate political power divided into politically random chunks in the Senate. It’s a fine instance of how we’ve got the best they could get 13 sovereign micronations to agree to 220 years ago, as modified piecemeal since then. Under the circumstances, it’d be an admirable bit of statecraft, but the circumstances are kinda like open-heart surgery in a hurricane with a plastic spoon. You’re going to want some post-operative care, badly.
And it’s not particularly difficult to get an entire state to vote for senators who are incompetent and ridiculous (I’m looking at you, Oklahoma).