In their annual appearance before the Senate, the heads of the nation’s intelligence agencies made it clear that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, is continuing to interfere in American politics now, and intends to interfere more forcefully in the 2018 midterms.
“There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” said Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence.
But of course, there is one person who doesn’t believe any of this—because he heard it from the best possible source.
President Trump said on Saturday that he believed President Vladimir V. Putin was sincere in his denials of interference in the 2016 presidential elections, calling questions about Moscow’s meddling a politically motivated “hit job” that was hindering cooperation with Russia on life-or-death issues. ...
President Trump said, “Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.”
Donald Trump’s willingness to believe Vladimir Putin over the intelligence heads that Trump appointed isn’t the only conflict between what the Trump White House is saying and what the intelligence community is reporting. The other differences are … everything else.
Senator Kamala Harris: Should the president recuse himself from reviewing and declassifying sensitive material related to this investigation?
Wray: He should discuss recusal with White House counsel.
In other questioning Wray disputed Trump’s claims of politicization within the FBI, refuted the White House timeline on Rob Porter, and reluctantly agreed that there was no plan to deal with Russian interference going forward.
One of the more interesting responses from Wray came from when Republican Sen. Tom Cotton took a break from trying to get the intelligence heads to say something bad about immigrants, and went back to trying to get some bad comments about Christopher Steele.
Something may have happened, but also nothing may have changed, because Cotton was deliberately misquoting James Comey to begin with. Comey’s words were always directed at only a portion of Steele’s work, a portion that contained “some personally sensitive aspects.” Republicans have been trying to paint Comey’s words as if they were a dismissal of all of Steele’s research in order to support the Nunes memo. That Wray shot down that effort shouldn’t be a surprise—though based on past examples, Cotton will surely find a way to edit Wray’s response to make it sound as if the FBI director was supportive of the Republican claims.
But with the Tuesday White House press conference only minutes away, reporters certainly had a few questions to address to press secretary Sarah Sanders. Questions about why Trump still continues to deny a foreign attack that every leader he put in place insists is underway. Questions about why everything learned about Rob Porter’s security clearance at Tuesday’s hearing directly contradicted what the White House has been saying. Questions about an FBI director, put in place by Trump, who is clearly refusing to go along with Trump’s attempt to undermine and demean his department.
Questions about whether Trump is going to allow these agencies to defend the country, or continue to cripple their actions.
“Make no mistake: This threat did not begin in 2016, and it certainly didn’t end with the election,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.). “What we are seeing is a continuous assault by Russia to target and undermine our democratic institutions, and they are going to keep coming at us.”
“Despite all of this, the president inconceivably continues to deny the threat posed by Russia,” Warner continued. “He didn’t increase sanctions on Russia when he had a chance to do so. He hasn’t even tweeted a single concern. This threat demands a whole-of-government response, and that needs to start with leadership at the top.”
Trump started off by demanding that the 10-page intelligence reports previous presidents had read each day be cut back to three or four pages, with plenty of pictures. More recently he’s given up reading even the comic book-version and insisted on someone reading it to him.
But it’s clear that there’s no point in preparing the report at all. Trump’s not listening.