Putin thrives on Congress’ disarray, says former envoy
The chaos plaguing the congressional investigation into Russian meddling in the November presidential election is “music to the ears” of an emboldened President Vladimir Putin, who will no doubt continue infiltrating democratic governments and undermining liberty if he isn’t stopped, the former American ambassador to Russia said Saturday.
The warning by Michael McFaul, who was ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, came during a packed town hall meeting in San Mateo hosted by Rep. Jackie Speier, DHillsborough.
The meeting, dubbed “Russia 101,” was an attempt by Speier to refocus attention on whether the Trump administration colluded with Russians to compromise the election.
Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, was involved in the investigation into Russian meddling, but the probe ground to a halt this week amid accusations of secret meetings, illegal leaks and coverups.
The confusion has at least temporarily diverted attention away from what Speier said are numerous ties between members of the Trump administration and Russia that are “frightening to me.” The links are so extraordinary, she said, that, if proven, they could rise to the level of treason.
“High crimes and misdemeanors, conducting yourself in a manner that is in violation of the Constitution, providing personal gain at public expense: those are all elements of treasonous acts,” Speier said after the event. She then added, “I think we’re a way from making that kind of determination.”
McFaul, a professor at Stanford University who was also a member of Obama’s National Security Council, said the backdrop in all this is the behavior of Putin, who was trained in the KGB and “still thinks of us as the enemy.”
Putin’s courtship with Trump is part of a larger scheme to stoke nationalist flames in the United States and across the world, he said, keeping countries focused inward and not on what Russia might be doing.
Putin “doesn’t want to join the international order,” McFaul said. “He wants to destroy it.”
The Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee was a violation of the sovereignty of the United States, McFaul said, but instead of a forceful response, the Trump administration has met the attacks with the kind of ambiguity that would be seen by Putin as encouragement.
“This is a more audacious, aggressive Putin than I’ve ever seen before,” McFaul said. “If we had done what they did to us, there would be total outrage . ... The notion that we can let him get away with these things and it will go away is incorrect.”
The town hall came as controversy swirled in Washington, D.C., over the decision by Rep. Devin Nunes to go to the White House last month to view classified information, which he then shared with the president. Nunes, a Tulare Republican who heads the Intelligence Committee, said he told Trump that U.S. intelligence services may have picked up “incidental” information on the president and his transition team as part of court-approved surveillance of foreign powers.
White House staffers reportedly helped Nunes get the classified information. Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, has declined to name his source and did not immediately share the information with his committee.
McFaul said he has never before heard of a member of Congress going to the White House to read classified information and then briefing the president about it, let alone holding a news conference afterward.
“The National Security Council staff is perfectly capable of briefing the president without help from the U.S. Congress and, therefore, I don’t quite understand what he was up to,” McFaul said. “I find it very hard to believe that a senior director at the National Security Council — that’s the title I had — would (allow) that without at least the national security adviser, if not the president, giving them permission to do so. That strikes me as, well, just very odd.”
Speier believes Nunes was trying to cover for Trump’s highly controversial tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping him. She characterized Nunes as the none-toobright spy from the longago TV show “Get Smart.”
“The Maxwell Smart behavior of the chairman cannot be squared,” she said. “I am absolutely convinced it started in the Oval Office. There’s no question in my mind that the president, with the aid of his national security adviser’s staff, came up with some kind of a ruse to try and suggest that there is validity to the president’s statement.”
Speier and McFaul are among a cavalcade of people who argue that Nunes no longer has the credibility to lead the investigation, including the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, who accused the White House of trying to “launder information through our committee.”
Trump said in a tweet that the whole thing is a “witch hunt,” but he is swimming against the tide.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., compared Nunes to the bumbling Inspector Clouseau character from the “Pink Panther” films. Rep. Eric Swalwell, DDublin, also a member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Chronicle’s editorial board Friday that “it looks like smoke bombs being rolled into an investigation.”
Speier and McFaul said Congress has an obligation to find out what happened, who did what and when.
“There is no question about whether Russia intervened in our election. They did,” Speier said. “I think there are serious offenses that may have been committed by a number of persons.”