It is now beyond doubt that Russia attacked this country's electoral process in 2016, and they are still doing it. Our intelligence and justice systems have provided incontrovertible evidence of it. In spite of that Trump continues to downplay it, and after attacking our real allies, has embraced Putin. Much has been written about Trump's possibly treasonous behavior, but Trump is not alone. In their effort to protect Trump, the congressional Republicans have also acted to protect Russia.
Consider the following. It is part of an op-ed by Paul Waldman at msn.com:
The truth is that the entire GOP is well on its way to becoming a Russian asset.
Are there a few Republican dissenters? Sure. But perhaps we’re having difficulty viewing that whole picture because what’s happening is so utterly bonkers that we can’t quite bring ourselves to see it clearly. So let’s review just some of the things we know:
- In 2016, the campaign of the Republican nominee for president was approached multiple times by representatives of the Russian government offering to help them win the election. These offers were welcomed with enthusiasm. The campaign was also led for a time by a political consultant with deep financial and personal ties to a Russian oligarch and a Kremlin puppet in Ukraine.
- Multiple members of the Trump team had contacts with the Russian government that they later lied to conceal.
- As part of its attack on the American electoral system, Russian intelligence hacked into Democratic Party systems. Some of the information it found there was released publicly and promoted gleefully by Republicans at all levels in order to help the Trump campaign; information relating to down-ballot campaigns was passed to Republicans, who used it in order to maintain their hold on the House of Representatives.
- Amid the insistence from the intelligence community that in 2018 Russia will likely attempt to once again penetrate the computer systems of state election agencies, Republicans this week killed an effort to provide funding to states to bolster the security of their election systems.
- As part of a lengthy effort to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, an important Republican interest group, an alleged Russian spy began a romance with a Republican activist, met multiple Republican leaders and fostered a relationship between American gun advocates and Russians. On the night of Trump’s victory, she messaged “I am ready for further orders” to her handler, a Russian banker named Alexander Torshin who is close to Putin.
- The NRA dramatically increased its spending on the 2016 presidential campaign from past years, pouring $30 million into their effort to elect Trump. The FBI is investigatingwhether that money may have illegally come from Russia, funneled to the organization by Torshin.
- The Trump administration has announced a change to IRS rules so that groups like the NRA will no longer have to identify their donors on their tax forms, making such money almost impossible to trace in the future.
- Over the last few years, the Christian right, another key part of the GOP coalition, has grown increasingly close to Putin, whom they see as an ally in a global clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam.
- In Congress, Republicans have undertaken an aggressive campaign to discredit and, many of them plainly hope, shut down the probe into the Russian attack on America. Though they mounted seven separate investigations of Benghazi, they are nearly united in their position that no further investigation into a hostile foreign power’s attempt to manipulate the American electoral system is necessary.
- Fox News, which functions as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, has aired relentless attacks on the Russia investigation and calls for it to be shut down.
- Despite the mountain of unambiguous evidence of the Russian attack in 2016, the overwhelming majority of Republican voters continue to say no such attack occurred.
- Hard-core Trump supporters are beginning to argue that even if Russia did attack the American electoral system, it was actually a good thing because it helped Donald Trump get elected.
