Shortly after The Washington Post reported late Friday that the CIA had briefed key senators this week that Russians had not merely meddled in the U.S. election, but had done so with the specific intent of getting Donald Trump elected, his transition team responded with a brief unsigned statement:
"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’"
Today, there was a doubling down as the transition team questioned the CIA’s motives:
On Saturday, spokesman Sean Spicer said there were "people within these agencies who are upset with the outcome of the election." [...]
Given Trump's statements, "there is an added urgency to the need for a thorough review before President Obama leaves office next month," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee. If the administration doesn't respond "forcefully" to such actions, "we can expect to see a lot more of this in the near future," he said.
President Obama has ordered a “deep dive” investigation into the claims. The White House has indicated that at least some of the resulting report will be released to the public. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is the incoming Democratic Minority Leader, has called for a congressional investigation in the new year. And on Wednesday, before the appearance of the latest revelations recounted to the Post by an unnamed source, a leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Eric Swalwell, and the ranking Democrat on House Oversight Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, said they are introducing a bill to create a bipartisan commission on the Russian meddling.
David Corn at Mother Jones reported that the subpoena-issuing committee would be made up of 12 members, split equally between Democrats and Republicans, all of them appointed by the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, and the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.
Congressional Republicans have been dedicated over the past few years to running multi-million-dollar investigations on matters already investigated and keep running them even when evidence gathered has proved fruitless. Expect that eagerness to evaporate when it comes to Russian meddling.
Imagine for a moment if Iran were being accused of meddling to elect a Democrat. Tom Cotton, John Bolton and the rest of the Republican Bomb, Bomb, Bomb crowd would be howling for the nuking of Tehran this afternoon, no investigation needed.