Campaign Action
Sen. Bob Corker earned some admiration from Americans on both sides of the aisle last year for repeatedly being willing to call Donald Trump’s comportment as pr*sident into question.
Then in December, obliterating his own line in the sand, he voted in favor of a deficit-ballooning tax cut for the rich and wealthy corporations that will strap future generations with debt for decades to come. And this week, he declined to even take part in what should be a bipartisan endeavor—protecting our nation's free and fair and elections from Russian interference.
On Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—which Corker chairs—released a 206-page report detailing Russian election meddling in other countries and the steps those countries took to combat it. But Republicans, led by Corker, refused to sign on, thereby casting a shadow over the report as a merely partisan effort by Democrats, who are trying to make up for the gaping hole in leadership left by Trump on the issue. As the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Ben Cardin, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Wednesday night:
The president has been negligent in dealing with this problem. And this is a matter of high national security concern—Russia is trying to compromise our democratic institutions. It's not just free elections. They want to bring down our way of government. They want corruption to reign.
Cardin said Corker and other Republicans were "fully aware" of the report and it was something Democrats had chosen to prioritize heading into 2017.
"This story had to be told," he said, "the American people had to understand what Russia and Mr. Putin were doing in our elections."
Nonetheless, Cardin added, "This was not a partisan report."
But it also did not shy away from what is plainly obvious: Trump has done absolutely nothing to protect future American elections against a Russian incursion.
Despite the clear assaults on our democracy and our allies in Europe, the U.S. government still does not have a coherent, comprehensive, and coordinated approach to the Kremlin’s malign influence operations, either abroad or at home. … the lack of presidential leadership in addressing the threat Putin poses has hampered a strong U.S. response. …
While many mid-level and some senior-level officials throughout the State Department and U.S. government are cognizant of the threat posed by Mr. Putin’s asymmetric arsenal, the U.S. President continues to deny that any such threat exists, creating a leadership vacuum in our own government and among our European partners and allies.
On MSNBC, Cardin compared Trump's inaction to the urgency with which our European counterparts have moved.
"After the 2016 elections, the European capitals all took steps to protect their election systems," he said, naming France, Germany and Montenegro. "Those countries have taken steps to protect themselves because they recognize that Russia is trying to bring down their democratic institutions."
Remember last summer when former FBI Director James Comey passionately testified that Russia was "coming for America [...] and they'll be back"?
It seems pretty clear that Trump and congressional Republicans either don't care about that prospect or they're counting on it.