Senate Democrats Tell Obama To SPILL IT DUDE On Russian Interference In Election

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee dropped this turd in President Barry Bamz Obama's punchbowl this week:

If you cannot embiggen, that letter is from Senators Ron Wyden, Jack Reed, Mark Warner, Barbara Mikulski, Martin Heinrich, Angus King and Mazie Hirono. Here's what it says:

Dear Mr. President:

We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.

Signed, EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOM. As Mother Jones   notes, the only Democratic senator on the intelligence committee missing from the letter is Dianne Feinstein, but The Atlantic   reports that she signed the classified version of the letter. But huh! Very interesting that they released this vague public version of the letter too! It's almost like they're like "Oh yeah, FBI dickface Jim Comey? We can write letters too, you know!"

And lots of people really would like to know what kinda juicy espionage-type stuff the government is sitting on. Republican Sen. Susan Collins is on the Intelligence committee too, and she's kinda sane sometimes, so we bet she'd like to know, even if she's not willing to sign a public letter like that, because "Republican."

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/will-congress-investigate-russian-meddling-in-election-if-we-call-it-hillary-clinton"></a>[/wonkbar]Sen. Lindsey Graham, also a Republican, has publicly called for an investigation, noting that it's the right thing to do, even if it helped the GOP side this time. Similarly, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings has been making noise for a month now about an investigation, and said Republican asshole Hillary-investigatin' Rep. Jason Chaffetz told him he'd be open to an investigation, but UM WE ARE ALL STILL WAITING.

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/no-for-real-though-is-donald-trump-a-russian-intelligence-asset"></a>[/wonkbar]WHAT DO WE KNOW RIGHT NOW? Well! We know Russia hacked the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails, and proceeded to leaky leak them to Wikileaks. We know Russia participated in spreading fake news all over the place, but hell, so did Donald Trump and Macedonian fake news shops and fucking Facebook. We know a limited amount of investigative reporting on actual links between the Russian government and Donald Trump, even including the possibility that the Russians have been cultivating Trump as an asset for YEARS.

We also know that the way Donald Trump talks about Vladimir Putin, it's statistically likely that he wants Putin to romance him, in his bottom.

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/donald-trump-will-love-vladimir-putin-forever-and-ever-and-you-cant-stop-him"></a>[/wonkbar]WHAT DO WE NOT KNOW? Has James Comey's FBI uncovered insane, explosive information like outgoing Sen. Harry Reid alleged before the election? If you'll remember, the intelligence community said, conclusively, that Russia had meddled in the election. Comey wouldn't sign that letter, probably because he's a Trump-supporting pussy. President Obama has publicly made that accusation as well, as has the head of the NSA. 

It's recently been reported, by computer scientists and also Edward Snowden (one's opinion of him doesn't matter right now) that hacking of state election systems is indeed possible. Is there evidence that it actually happened? Does the government have conclusive evidence that Trump and Putin's government colluded before the election? What kinda dirty details did these senators just send to Obama through classified channels?

Look, we get it. If secret information is released that proves that yes, Russia fucking did hack into our election process and/or engage in other psy ops in order to get Donald Trump elected, it sure enough might undermine public confidence in American elections. But we'd much rather that happen, and have that lead to real reforms that ensure the integrity of the process, even if it means trust has to rebuilt, than to let America sit idly by, naively trusting in something that is, in point of fact, untrustworthy, especially when we're about to inaugurate as president a tiny-handed autocrat like Donald Trump, who stands to put far more of our cherished American institutions at risk than merely our electoral process. (He just might fuck that up more too!)

DO IT OBAMA, SHOW US THE GOODS, AND BY "GOODS" WE DON'T MEAN YOUR CROTCH ROCKET, WE MEAN ALL THE EVIDENCE THE GOVERNMENT HAS ON WHAT RUSSIA DID TO OUR ELECTION, BUT YOU CAN SHOW US THE CROTCH ROCKET TOO IF YOU WANT.

But mostly the Russian stuff, because we kinda like need to know.

[ Digby ]