House Intel Republican Just Saying Trump-Style Election Crimes Are Awesome Now

Boy, didn't see that coming.

It was bound to happen. We're now watching Republican congressmen react to Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office and saying "RUSSIA IF YOU'RE LISTENING" during an interview with George Stephanopoulos, literally inviting hostile foreign powers to attack the 2020 election for him like Russia did in 2016. And if you thought there wouldn't be at least one of them to say the quiet part loud and state for the record that crime is good if it helps Republicans win, then you haven't been paying attention to the Republican party in quite a while.

Enter GOP Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, AKA the committee whose members really should know better, even the Republicans, but unfortunately they don't because A) they're idiots and B) they've been sucking at Devin Nunes's dairy cows' teats (ALLEGEDLY) for too long:

"There might be valuable information that comes from one of our allies ... I think it would be foolish not to take… https: //t.co/fcdEGBMby8

— CNN Newsroom (@CNN Newsroom) 1560520480.0 

Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that it would be "foolish" not to take information from a foreign government pertaining to an election campaign.

While Stewart said he wouldn't have said it the way President Donald Trump did to ABC News — the president said he would take intel from a foreign government and maybe not alert the FBI — there's good reason to look at the information they may be offering.

"It depends on who it is and the circumstances and how credible it is," Stewart told CNN's Jim Scuitto. "There might be valuable information that comes from one of our allies. If they look at it, and it's credible, I think it would be foolish not to take that information."

Stewart specifically mentioned that the intel could come from one of the United States' allies, like the United Kingdom or Australia, two countries that are part of an intelligence-sharing agreement called the Five Eyes.

"They may have information that is valuable," Stewart said.

Oh go fuck yourself and do not pass go, you asshole.

Nobody is talking about something that comes from Five Eyes. Nobody . And you know what? If one of the Five Eyes nations shared intel free of charge with a presidential campaign -- you might even call it some sort of "in-kind donation"! -- that would still be illegal! But hey, we're talking about Donald Trump here, and the idea that he'd be getting along with one of our traditional allies so well that they'd want to help him win re-election is a hypothetical that's a little bit too silly for us to consider.

So here's Chris Stewart, trying to deflect from the actual point, which is that a HOSTILE FOREIGN POWER intervened to steal the White House for Trump in 2016; his campaign welcomed it, according to the Mueller Report; and his campaign will welcome it -- on a "case by case basis," of course, right, Kayleigh McEnany? -- when they try it again in 2020. So let's fuck off with the talk about one of our "allies," OK?

And again, even if it was from Five Eyes, it would be illegal . Here is the head of the Federal Election Commission once again, because she apparently had to say this:

I would not have thought that I needed to say this. https: //t.co/T743CsXq79

— Ellen L 😷 Weintraub (@Ellen L 😷 Weintraub) 1560467501.0 

This. Is. Not. Normal.

Wonkette would simply like the record to show that the GOP continues to follow Trump into hell, that we have not yet found a Trump crime that they're not completely OK with, and now that the Mueller Report has shown us 448 pages of NO COLLUSION (read: collusion) and massive obstruction of justice, the Republicans are mostly all figuring out how they're OK with that too. After all, their shithole king says it's OK!

On that note, we'd like to direct you to two longer reads, both of which are worth your time. One, from Adam Serwer, is an excellent essay called "The Illiberal Right Throws a Tantrum," and it dives deep into the reality of the current GOP, which has largely abandoned any pretenses of believing in democracy or the rule of law, because they can't easily preserve (white) power at the ballot box in a country where elections are decided fairly and the Constitution is followed. Quite simply, they're not an American political party anymore, and Serwer argues credibly that the closest corollary we have to the modern GOP, or at least certain dominant factions of it, is actually theOrbánists in Hungary. (Which should terrify all patriotic Americans .)

The second, which sort of builds on the first, is from Amanda Marcotte at Salon, encouraging Democrats to get through their thick heads ASAP that Donald Trump is showing all the requisite signs that, assuming he loses and loses big in 2020, he will literally refuse to leave office, and there's no reason to believe the GOP wouldn't take his side in that battle. After all, the polls are all fake and it was probably rigged, right?

This fucking country right now, Jesus Christ.

On that happy note, have an OPEN THREAD.

[ The Salt Lake Tribune ]

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