Yesterday's Senate hearings on the extensive Russian efforts to get Donald Trump elected U.S. president produced a lot of good sound bites, and much-needed pushback against the right-wing propaganda machine's bizarre efforts to legitimize WikiLeaks at the expense of the entirety of U.S. intelligence networks. But I kept thinking those hearings ignored the big question: why?
Why did Putin work so hard to get Trump elected? Never before has the Russian despot been so deeply interested in electing a particular American presidential candidate. Putin's loathing of Hillary Clintion is well-documented, and he certainly wants to undermine President Obama and the international coalition that has imposed damaging sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, but it's clearly something more. Putin doesn't just want to defeat Clinton and Obama, he wants Trump, specifically, as president. Why?
Hard right former NSA staffer and now national security columnist John Schindler offers one obvious clue:
After all, the single change to the Republican platform insisted upon by the Trump team was a reversal of the party's hard stance against Russian interference in Ukraine.
Why?
Many suspect Trump's tax returns would offer many more clues. Which is likely one of many reasons we will never see them. And I was hoping senators would ask the National Security leaders why they thought Putin was so supportive of Trump. But I was looking at it backward. Because there are so many possible reasons, and judging Putin's motives is necessarily speculative, and it's not the most important question. Ultimately, Putin's support of Trump only points to the real question, and in an interview yesterday Tim Kaine nailed it:
"Why does President-elect Trump again and again and again take it upon himself to be Vladimir Putin's defense lawyer rather than listening to and respecting the intelligence professionals of the United States," Kaine told CNN's Alisyn Camerota on "New Day" in his first national interview since the 2016 presidential election.
The former Democratic vice presidential nominee, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee which is hold a hearing on hacking Thursday, said that even if Trump believes Russia can be America's ally in the fight against ISIS, he doesn't have to "trash" American intelligence professionals in the process.
"There is something very unusual -- indeed, even sort of suspicious -- about the degree to which he casually kicks aside the intelligence community when he won't even go to the briefings again and again and takes the Assange/Vladimir Putin line on this important question" about whether Russian was behind the election-related hacks, Kaine said.
That's Tim Kaine: Moderate of tone, certainly no firebrand fire breather, calmly getting to the crux of the issue.
Donald Trump lashes out at celebrities, TV shows, and Broadway theater casts, and often is both petty and personal in criticizing political opponents, left and right, yet never has a bad word to say about the Russian leader who has crushed his nation's democracy, free press, and political opposition, has invaded a neighbor, is attempting to undermine democracies across Europe, and is responsible for some of the worst slaughtering of innocents in Syria.
Why?
Sort of suspicious is Kaine being measured and moderate, but he's asking the exact right question. And the continued existence of our republic may be determined by whether and how that question is answered.