What Did Republicans Know About the Russia Scandal? America Deserves an Answer.

[deminks]

https://newrepublic.com/article/143853/republicans-know-russia-scandal-america-deserves-answer

The emails that Donald Trump Jr. released to the public on Tuesday have shattered the illusions of Trump allies and foes like, many of whom couldn’t imagine that even a heedlessly corrupt individual like Donald Trump would run an organization with such impunity that its leaders would connive in private with representatives of the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton.

(snip)

Yet when approached in a private briefing with an Obama administration proposal to issue a bipartisan statement condemning Russian interference, Republican leaders “seemed opposed to the idea of going public with such an explosive allegation in the final stages of an election,” according to the Post. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in particular “raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.”

McConnell’s treachery at that pivotal moment has been hashed over at length since the Post first broke the story. But it is instructive to revisit it in full context. As we now know, McConnell ran interference for Trump to stop President Barack Obama from warning the country about a Russian subversion campaign that Trump not only knew to exist, but with which he actively collaborated. We don’t know for certain that Ryan joined McConnell in rebuffing the Obama administration, but it stands to reason he did. At the very least, we know that as House speaker he could have forced the issue the other way, and did not.

That abdication carried a rotten stench even before we knew how solicitous the Trump campaign was of Russian meddling. But now we know that the proof McConnell supposedly needed was sitting idly in multiple inboxes at Trump campaign headquarters. Until Tuesday, he and other Republicans could escape scrutiny for their conduct by hiding behind the sensitivity of the deliberations. Now the best they can say for their behavior is that they unwittingly abetted Trump’s collusion with the Russian government because they fell for his lies. The alternative is that they made a conscious decision to allow Russian subversion of the election to continue unimpeded. The country deserves to know where the truth lies.

(end snip)

McTurtle, Ryan

[tonyt53]

1. Did they know? Better question is "what Republican didn't have a Russian connection?"