There is an https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/opinion/a-party-to-the-russian-connection.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0 by Evan McMullin, who ran as an independent for president in the last election. An ex-C.I.A. officer, he was chief policy director of the House Republican Conference from January 2015 until August 2016, and presumably had an inside look at what Congressional Republicans were thinking before and during Trump’s run for President. It’s rather chilling:
Republican leaders in Congress now bear the most responsibility for holding the president accountable and protecting the nation. They can’t say they didn’t see the Russian interference coming. They knew all along.
Having seen what was going on with Russian interference in the Ukraine in early 2015, the Republicans were well aware of what Russian might do to destabilize the US elections.
As the presidential race wore on, some of those leaders began to see parallels between Russia’s disinformation operations in Ukraine and Europe and its activities in the United States. They were alarmed by the Kremlin-backed cable network RT America, which was running stories intended, they judged, to undermine Americans’ trust in democratic institutions and promote Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Deeply unsettled, the leaders discussed these concerns privately on several occasions I witnessed.
Trump’s public demonstrations of his infatuation with Putin …
led one senior Republican leader to dolefully inform his peers that he thought Mr. Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll, suggesting that Mr. Trump had been compromised by Russian intelligence. Other leaders were surprised by their colleague’s frank assessment, but did not dispute it.
But as Trump gained ground, the Repubs got in line so that
Shockingly, some of the leaders most concerned about Russian subversion and Mr. Trump’s possible compromise were his first and most vocal supporters among congressional leaders — some publicly, some privately. It was an inauspicious trade of national security for political self-preservation and partisan ambition.
The Repubs own Trump and his Russian connections. They were aware of the danger and put their political careers ahead of the country. But, of course, we know that even without the Russian connection. What seems new, at least to me, is that the Republican leaders knew the risk long before a Trump presidency became a reality.