You were probably wondering if there was any circumstance whatsoever in which Republican lawmakers and party leaders would, at long last, begin abandoning the nastiness of Donald Trump and those he has surrounded himself with. You were probably wondering if Republican lawmakers, who blocked the public from hearing more forceful warnings about Russian efforts to alter the outcome of the United States presidential election, would at any point give up their continued efforts to block the public from learning the full story of those efforts.
You were probably wondering if there was any decency left in the Republican Party, or among Republican senators. There is not.
That would be the response of Sen. Thom Tillis to the revelations this morning that top members of the Trump presidential campaign team were directly informed that the Russian government wanted to assist them in winning the election over their Democratic opponent—and eagerly took that meeting.
Sen. Tillis remains unconcerned, believing now-proven efforts to collude with a foreign power to be less important than Republican tax-cutting efforts. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator currently in office, is of similar mind.
To be clear, the email chain links not just the chairman of the Trump presidential campaign but current White House administration everyman Jared Kushner himself, directly, to knowledge of Russian government efforts to assist Trump in winning the election. Kushner and the others kept this secret even as Russian hacks of their Democratic opponents were distributed on WikiLeaks.
Kushner and the others kept this secret even as nation's intelligence agencies were scrambling to determine the extent of the actions and their motivation. They kept this information secret even as House and Senate investigations were launched to determine the extent of Russian actions, and even after the appointment of a special counsel to investigate them.
That's what Sen. Orrin Hatch is describing as “overblown” and “not relevant to this administration.”
So then, there we have it. Yes, even direct evidence that members of the Republican presidential campaign not only sought Russian government help in undermining the U.S. election but concealed their own knowledge of Russian efforts from the public and their government is still something the most powerful members of the Republican Party will not just defend, but declare to be "not relevant."
They will even go so far as to call knowledge of those actions a "distraction"—because those actions have better empowered the Republicans to enact their party's agenda. Even this.
No, there is no decency left.