Obama and Congress Knew About Russian Hacking—And They Did Nothing
Now, it has come to light that senior Members of Congress had been briefed in September on the pervasive Russian threat to the core functioning of our democracy. Obama dispatched FBI director James Comey, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnston, and White House counterterrorism and homeland security advisor Lisa Monaco to brief the so-called “Gang of 12” lawmakers: House & Senate leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking members on the Homeland Security and Intelligence Committee.
They knew. And yet it appears little was done to stop Vladimir Putin’s efforts to put Donald Trump in the White House.
Upon reflection, this has the most galling aspect of this whole affair: not that Russia deployed a successful covert influence campaign against America, but that our lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle failed to take more aggressive efforts to halt this metastasizing threat to our democracy. More specifically, that President Obama was unwilling to forcefully counteract and confront Moscow’s mischief, and that GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was nakedly partisan in his decision to stifle the intelligence.
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