Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Reince Priebus may not have gone as far as Donald Trump did when he used a press conference to call on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton. But they were complicit in the effects of Russian election hacking, refusing before the election to go public and condemn it just as they continue to refuse to see it as a significant issue that should be seriously investigated. That refusal to condemn came even as Democrats repeatedly reached out seeking bipartisan responses to the hacking:
DNC Chair Donna Brazile urged RNC Chair Reince Priebus, twice in private and once in a letter, to join her in condemning Russia’s theft of DNC emails after they were posted online and cost Brazile’s predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her job, according to the New York Times. Each time, Priebus declined to take her up on the offer, the paper noted. [...]
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both resisted pleas to speak out in a bipartisan manner on Russia’s hacking when President Barack Obama pressed them to do so, according to The Washington Post. The paper reported that the two expressed concern that it would turn the matter into a partisan squabble. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told HuffPost that he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tried to get all four leaders to sign a letter and even changed the language to accommodate McConnell’s concerns. But the Kentucky Republican, who did warn states about the vulnerability of their election infrastructure to cyber espionage, wouldn’t budge.
“I came to the point where [I realized] it didn’t matter what we said, they aren’t going to sign the letter,” Reid said.
But then, why would Ryan, McConnell, or Priebus condemn something that was helping them out, just because it was undermining American democracy? For that matter, Wednesday morning Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker said “I don't think we ought to have our hair on fire about that. I'm sorry.” Because hey, countries spy on one another and it’s totes normal so why worry about it when it influences our elections? (As long as it influences our elections toward Republicans, anyway.)