President-elect Donald Trump has a Russia problem — and he alone can fix it. The longer he waits to do so, the more damage he’ll do to his own credibility and that of vital American institutions. That damage is already
President-elect Donald Trump has a Russia problem — and he alone can fix it. The longer he waits to do so, the more damage he’ll do to his own credibility and that of vital American institutions. That damage is already too great.
American intelligence officials now firmly believe Russia was behind efforts not just to meddle in the recent presidential election but to try its best to boost Trump’s campaign over that of his rival, Hillary Clinton.
To determine the scope of the intrusions, and the motives behind them, President Barack Obama has ordered a full-scale investigation be completed by Jan. 20. That’s appropriate, if well overdue. Republicans on Capitol Hill are now demanding a more thorough investigation, too. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supported calls for a bipartisan Senate inquiry. “It defies belief that somehow Republicans in the Senate are reluctant to either review Russian tactics or ignore them. … The Russians are not our friends.”
Trump? Inexplicably, even bizarrely, he has refused to condemn Russia’s foreign intrusion in our elections. He has maintained his mid-campaign insistence that it didn’t happen. He hasn’t even joined calls to investigate.
Last week, when asked for comment on the conclusions by America’s intelligence agencies that Russia had indeed tried to influence the election, his transition team issued a statement ridiculing the nation’s spy services.
“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” it stated. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”
Whom does such deception serve? Certainly not the nation, which relies on those agencies for its safety. Nor does it serve its new president-elect.
The mistakes about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were made nearly 15 years ago, before some of the agencies involved in the current assessment even existed. And, for the record, Trump’s Electoral College margin of victory was well below the historical average — among the lowest in history.
Meanwhile, his strange defense of Russia has begun to cast a shadow over his international business dealings and that of some of those under consideration for his Cabinet. Several hawkish Republican senators have now raised questions about whether Rex Tillerson’s history of doing business in Russia as an Exxon Mobil executive should warrant special scrutiny.
Trump has stirred concerns like those by his strange resistance to what ought to have been an immediate, bipartisan consensus that we quickly find out everything there is to know about Russia’s interference in the election. He has left Americans with an uncomfortable feeling that he’s willing to say just about anything to avoid calling out Russia.
Whatever his reasons for doing so, he would serve himself, the nation, and the agencies that work to keep us safe, by changing his tone.
