Whether it’s in the House or Senate, every investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russian officials tends to go the same way. Democratic Senator A? Yes, here are some questions about the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia. Republican Senator B? Hello, can you tell me why Hillary Clinton is not in jail?
That’s not strictly true in all cases, of course. Because sometimes the Republican Theme of the Day is “unmasking” or “the terrible danger of leakers.” Sometimes, as in this morning’s House Intelligence Committee meeting, they even dip a toe into all those areas. It’s all good—so long as it’s not the actual subject of the hearing.
At the witness table, Brennan told a harrowing tale. As CIA director last summer, he saw what was happening with the hack-and-leak attack on the Democratic National Committee, and he reviewed top-secret intelligence and concluded that Russia was mounting this assault to disrupt the election, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. He also at the time was aware of intelligence that showed contacts between Trump associates and Russia, and that caused him to conclude a thorough FBI investigation was warranted. He testified, "I saw interaction" that warranted concern.
The CIA director recounting a direct assault on American democracy by a foreign power. So … how much did Republicans not care?
When the Republicans on the committee had the chance to question Brennan, they did not press him for more details on Russia's information warfare against the United States. Instead, they fixated on protecting Trump.
Yeah, only that particular strategy didn’t work so well. Because when Republicans pressed Brennan on the issue of collusion, they got an answer that was perilously close to “yup.”
The Republicans zeroed in on the issue of whether Trump and his associates colluded with any Russians involved in the attack on US democracy—to push Brennan to say that he had not seen concrete evidence of such conspiring. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Brennan repeatedly on this point. They posed the same basic query: did you see any evidence that Trump or his associates plotted with Russians? "I don't do evidence. I do intelligence," Brennan replied. Still, they kept pressing him. They were obviously hoping he would state that he had not come across any such evidence so Trump and his champions could cite Brennan as a witness for their claim no collusion occurred.
Republicans clearly expected Brennan to fold and admit that, no, he didn’t really have anything definitive against Trump. And why not? It’s what Trump has been saying repeatedly. But just as the first public hearing of the committee brought an uncomfortable response from then FBI director James Comey, what Republicans got for their Trump-defending troubles from Brennan was not what they might have hoped.
Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trump—and they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.
Gowdy, in particular, came off poorly in the exchange. That was particularly true when he jumped on a hint that Russia might have collected more information on the candidates, then questioned Brennan about what kind of Clinton secrets the Russians may have collected but, cruelly, never revealed to Republicans starving for more Hillary hate. Several other Republicans made a similar push to get Comey to somehow say that there was no there there. They all failed.
But then there was Utah Representative Chris Stewart ...
[Stewart] asserted he had reviewed raw intelligence, and he insisted the information supporting the assessment that Moscow had preferred Trump was not as solid as the intelligence community maintained.
Why bother to ask the CIA director, when you’ve looked at raw data and decided you can interpret it more accurately than the CIA? Where “more accurately” is, of course, whatever defends Donald Trump.