Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has concluded in a long review by the committee of the Russian election interference in 2016, that the Obama administration is at fault and was not "well-postured" to combat Russian election interference and was "frozen by 'paralysis of analysis,' hamstrung by constraints both real and perceived."
Yes, a real and perceived constraint was Moscow Mitch McConnell directly threatening President Obama's CIA that he would scorch the earth politically if they went public with what they knew about Russia interfering on behalf of Trump. He told the CIA that he would condemn the Obama administration publicly, and would say that it was trying to skew the election. That, the Obama administration concluded, posed a more dire threat to the public's confidence in the upcoming election than Russia. They may have been right. It was McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, threatening civil war with the White House.
"Many of their concerns were understandable," Burr concedes, "including the fear that warning the public of the election threat would only alarm the American people and accomplish Russia's goal of undermining faith in our democratic institutions." Yes, because of McConnell's promised retaliation! "In navigating those valid concerns, however, Obama officials made decisions that limited their options, including preventing internal information-sharing and siloing cyber and geopolitical threats," Burr continued.
Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on SSCI, made an oblique aside to McConnell's interference, saying there "were many flaws with the U.S. response to the 2016 attack, but it's worth noting that many of those were due to problems with our own system—problems that can and should be corrected." He added "All Americans, particularly those of us in government and public office, must work together to push back on foreign interference in our elections without regard for partisan advantage." We needed better than that from Warner, frankly.