WHAT RUSSIAN HACKING? WHAT RUSSIA?
It seems that we are watching the Trump administration’s effort to obstruct justice unfold right before our eyes.
And Attorney General Jeff Sessions is smack in the middle of it.
One would think this should be a simple and overarching matter: We must investigate the depth of the Russians’ meddling with our 2016 election, including asking whether that meddling involves collusion with any Americans.
But that’s not what we’re seeing. Instead, President Donald Trump, rather than acknowledge that America should get to the bottom of this, has called the whole thing a “hoax” and the investigation “a witch hunt.”
Last week, former FBI Director Jim Comey testified that he was fired by the president after he resisted suggestions to give fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn a pass for lying about his Russia connections and conversations. Comey added that Trump never once asked about the Russia meddling probe beyond a very initial briefing.
On Tuesday, Sessions acknowledged that he’s never asked either.
“The only thing I know, I’ve read in the paper,” Sessions said. That might seem an appropriate answer about the collusion portion of the FBI’s and Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation. After all, Sessions had to recuse himself from that portion of the government’s probe after he falsely volunteered in his confirmation hearing months ago that he’d not met with any Russians.
But it hardly seems appropriate that he would not even ask about the Russian hacking portion of the probe — the part that would deal with protecting American elections from Russians or others.
Sessions, by the way, had two meetings — perhaps a third, though he has “no recollection” of that possible third — with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. One meeting was a private one-on-one meeting in his Senate office on Sept. 8. He later had to amend his confirmation testimony about those meetings.
And never mind that despite Sessions’ recusal from the collusion probe, he then participated in the firing of the FBI director who was investigating the matter.
But to hear Sessions tell it — with a air of righteous indignation — he has done nothing wrong. He called the notion that he colluded with Russia a “detestable lie.” Further he added about his participation in Comey’s firing: “It did not violate my recusal.”
He wouldn’t talk about what conversations he had with Trump about Comey. He acknowledged that he never talked with Comey about the so-called “problems” laid out in the firing memo — things like the FBI being “in disarray.” (Not that it really matters, since President Trump has acknowledged the firing was because of “the Russia thing.”) Now one of Trump’s friends has told news outlets that Trump is contemplating firing special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to lead the FBI investigation after Comey was fired.
You get the message: We the American people can see that there are white clouds in the blue sky and the sun rises every morning, but Sessions and Trump and others in the administration,
as well as many other Republicans, are telling us there are no clouds, there is no sky, and the sun never sets, let alone rises.
Meanwhile Tuesday, as Sessions danced around virtually every question asked of him citing “policy,” Bloomberg and other news organizations were reporting that Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, “including incursions into voter databases and software systems” in 39 states.
Repeat: 39 states in America suffered Russian incursions into their voter databases and software systems in the summer and fall of 2016.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data, according to Bloomberg. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state they accessed a campaign finance database.
Bloomberg writes that the scope and sophistication so concerned the Obama administration that officials took an unprecedented step — complaining directly to Moscow over a modern-day “red phone,” warning the Kremlin that the attacks risked setting off a broader conflict.
After the warning, the hackers’ work still continued. According to a leaked NSA document, hackers working for Russian military intelligence were trying to take over the computers of 122 local election officials just days before the Nov. 8 election.
The news of such widespread Russian interference — and Sessions’ stonewalling — comes less than a week after Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn’t done meddling.
“They’re coming after America,” Comey told the same Senate Intelligence Committee. “They will be back.”
Unfortunately, the only thing the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation is thus far making clear is that the Trump crowd has no intention of being open and honest about it — let alone making a plan to stop it.