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It's as though official and former official Washington D.C. is quietly shouting out "don't let this happen," as the reality of Donald Trump sinks in deeper and deeper. Case in point, the National Security Agency. Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the NSA and the U.S. Cyber Command, who spoke at a Wall Street Journal forum on Tuesday. He was speaking generally about cybersecurity, then this happened.
[Deputy Editor-in-Chief Rebecca] Blumenstein also asked Rogers about WikiLeaks, and the slow and steady leak of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's gmail account. "There shouldn't be any doubts in anybody's mind: This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily," Rogers said. "This was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect."
That nation state is clearly Russia. The specific effect was damage to the Clinton campaign and the election of Donald Trump. As a former Wikileaks writer emphasizes this is the current chief of the NSA, who "just publicly said a 'nation state' intervened in the election of the next president he'll serve."
It's the NSA saying anything publicly. That's kind of a big deal. That's kind of a huge deal. Note that he didn't specifically say "Russia" and he didn't indicate that it was a reciprocal arrangement—there's no indication from this statement that Trump was colluding with Russia. But with enough evidence of all that already in the public sphere, he didn't really have to.
But what's the purpose of this very public statement at this pivotal moment? Is it a Very. Big. Hint to the traditional media (it was spoken at a WSJ event, after all) to keep a very wary eye on Trump? Was it a message to the FBI to say that if they weren't taking this shit seriously, the NSA is? Or was it to communicate to the incoming Trump administration to remember that the spooks are watching them, too?
The thing is, though, Russia just meddled in our presidential election. Directly and in full view. And they did to help the candidate, who has many ties to Russia, get elected. Shouldn't somebody do something about that?