Senators Christopher Coons and Sheldon Whitehouse have sent a letter to Ted Cruz in his role as chairman of the oversight subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The opening of their letter says it all.
We write to express our concern regarding recent remarks made by presidential nominee Donald Trump and the threat of foreign influence in U. S. elections. … When asked if he would call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stay out of the United States’ presidential election, Mr. Trump stated: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing … I think you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press.” Mr. Trump’s apparent encouragement of a foreign cyberattack on presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a U. S. citizen and former Secretary of State, is dangerous and irresponsible.
Donald Trump has loosed so much WTF in the first two days of this week that calling on a foreign power to interfere with the election seems like old news. However, Trump’s multiple connections to Russia, and specifically to Putin, continue to unfold and once the stories of the moment are in the past, there are still some very serious concerns about Trump’s actions and statements.
What are the odds that Ted Cruz will actually convene a hearing to consider Trump’s “please come screw with our election” request? Who knows? It’s Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Calculating those interactions would make Heisenberg throw up his hands. But the formal request has to be seriously tickling Cruz’s sense of revenge—the most important sense for both Trump and Cruz.
To ensure the integrity of the presidential election and its insulation from Russian cyber threats, we ask that you conduct an oversight hearing to consider whether existing federal criminal statues and federal court jurisdiction sufficiently address conduct related to foreign entities that could undermine our elections.
Dear Ted, can we come up with something to lock up Trump and throw away the key? Tempting … tempting … hmmm.
