Campaign Action
Because we're apparently having to do this now, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is announcing herself as the first candidate to pledge not to use the products of foreign espionage efforts against the United States as campaign materials.
No, this is actually a thing. Because Donald Goddamn Trump, his mobbish lawyers, and a host of top Republican lawmakers have mounted a spirited defense of using materials gained by hostile foreign election-tamperers in the ways the Mueller report lays out the Donald Trump campaign attempted.
“Russia is a foreign adversary of the United States, and we all must learn serious lessons from their cyber attack on our election systems in 2016. Russia will be back, and it is troubling that President Trump and his top aides are not only failing to hold them accountable but actually normalizing the idea of ‘taking information from Russians’ for political gain,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
So we've got Sen. Lindsey Graham and Trump TV-lawyer Rudy Giuliani making the rounds arguing that because special counsel Robert Mueller didn't prosecute members of the Trump campaign for soliciting assistance from Russia or for attempting to use the products of foreign espionage for Republican gain, that makes those things legal now. And in response, the Democratic contenders seek to distinguish themselves by pledging that no, they won't be working as tools of foreign espionage and propaganda efforts during their own runs for office BECAUSE GODDAMNED DUH, YOU MALEVOLENT TREASONOUS TRASH-PILES.
Because country still comes before party in a non-authoritarian, democratic state. And, apparently, that needs to now be affirmed, because Fox News hosts and Republican lawmakers are so devoted to protecting every last thing Trump does, regardless of propriety, that they are now arguing against even that much.
This will matter, too. This will come up. Because, as Rudy Giuliani laid out on the Sunday shows, "Who's to say it's even illegal?" The Trump-Pence campaign isn't just defending its myriad contacts with Russian would-be allies in 2016, but is insisting that there's no actual law preventing it from doing the exact same thing in the next election as well.