A key finding, a dire warning
The U.S. intelligence community assessment that Russia conducted a sophisticated campaign to boost Donald Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 presidential election has received significant validation in a 158page report that was endorsed unanimously by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
No report, no matter how thorough or bipartisan as this one, may stop the president from assailing the investigation as a “witch hunt” orchestrated by a “deep state” determined to delegitimize his presidency. Even Sunday, with the nation battling a pandemic that has claimed more than 50,000 lives, Trump was tweeting out a blast at “reporters” (his quote marks) who had received “Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong (and, in fact, it was the other side who committed the crimes).”
One can only assume he meant Pulitzer Prizes — not “Noble Prizes” — but that was not even close to his most consequential fact error of the week (see: Lysol). So we’ll let that one go.
The disturbing aspect of Trump’s Sunday tweet storm was his continuing efforts to discredit the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had worked mightily to rattle Americans’ faith in their democracy — and the denigration of Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton was part of the strategy. To acknowledge that reality is not to suggest that it was a factor in Trump’s victory. Rather, the point is to recognize it happened and could happen again if the U.S. does not ramp up its defenses.
The intelligence committee assessment “reflects strong tradecraft, sound analytical reasoning and proper justification of disagreement in the one analytical line where it occurred,” Sen. Richard Burr, RN.C., the committee chair, said in a statement. “The committee found no reason to dispute the intelligence committee’s conclusions.”
The Senate report comes as the Trump administration has assigned John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to investigate whether the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency acted improperly in the leadup to their conclusion that Russia had indeed interfered on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election. Durham was given the task by Attorney General William Barr, whose willingness to serve Trump’s political objectives was made plain in his handling of the report by independent counsel Robert Mueller.
The bipartisan Senate account, released last week, debunked the Trump talking point that the investigation was based in a significant part on a dossier by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that included unverified salacious allegations about
Trump. Elements of the Steele dossier were included in the annex to the assessment, the Senate report noted, but were not used “to support any of its analytical judgments.”
Moreover, the Senate investigation determined that all analysts involved in the intelligence assessment “were free to debate, object to content and assess confidence levels.”
While most Americans have moved on from the 2016 scandal — especially with lives and livelihoods at stake in the coronavirus crisis — the Russians’ malicious intent is as relevant as ever. As Burr noted, it should be considered “the new normal.” He said: “With the 2020 presidential election approaching, it’s more important than ever that we remain vigilant against the threat of interference from hostile foreign actors.”
That concern must transcend party lines, as it did in the Senate Intelligence Committee after its indepth review.