Trump's people. All of them say Russia will interfere with the fall elections. All of them.
Here is some bad news that might have kind of gotten buried this week, amid all the insanity! Trump's spy chiefs testified for the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday (in the same hearing where FBI Director Chris Wray torched the White House's lie narrative about what they knew and when they knew it about wife-beater White House staffer Rob Porter), and senators were very interested to know what they all thought about Russian interference in our elections and whether it's still going on right now. Can you believe that every single one of them -- in other words, ALL OF THEM KATIE -- said Russia is literally attacking America right now and that they most certainly are going to try to fuck the 2018 midterms? We cannot emphasize enough times that these are Trump's hand-picked people . These are not Obama people who are making an excuse for why Democrats lost an election!
Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence AKA the top spy in ALL THE LAND:
“There should be no doubt that Russia perceives that its past efforts have been successful and views the 2018 midterm US elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” Coats, the nation’s top spy, said on Tuesday. “Frankly, the United States is under attack.”
Mike Rogers, director of the NSA:
"This is not going to change or stop," Rogers said.
Coats:
“We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen, and other means to influence and try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States.”
Chris Wray, FBI director:
When asked by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) if Trump directed any of the intelligence heads present at the hearing to stop Russia from meddling, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “not specifically directed by the president.”
OF COURSE NOT.
As Vox notes, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week that Russia was ALREADY fucking our midterm elections, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo answered like this last month when the BBC asked if Russia would still be meddling in our elections this fall:
"Of course. I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that, but I'm confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won't be great."
Note how rosy he is. It'll be fine! For real, just relax! Mike Pompeo is ON IT.
MEANWHILE, BACK IN EXECUTIVE TIME BIG MAC PUSSGRABBING LAND!
CNN reported Thursday , a day after the Senate Intel Committee hearing, that despite how all his own hand-picked people agree that Russia is successfully subverting our democracy, Donald Trump still doesn't believe it. And why? Oh, same reason it's always been. He is thin-skinned and weak and sad and gets his feelings hurt easily, and if he admits Russia helped him win, then that will mean his "historic" victory didn't happen because Donald Trump is the most brilliant president to ever engage in the act of presidenting. In other words, if the president of the United States is forced to confront the truth, it will make him cry big orange tears and refuse to leave his bedroom ever again (which wouldn't be all that different from the two hours he leaves his bedroom each day to "run the country"):
Even as his intelligence chiefs unanimously told a Senate panel Tuesday that Russia meddled in 2016 and is planning to do so again in 2018, three sources familiar with the President's thinking say he remains unconvinced that Russia interfered in the presidential election.
While this issue is separate from the question of whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Russian officials, to Trump the issues are interwoven, the sources say. He views the notion that Russia meddled in the election as an argument that he had help to win, and that he didn't win the election on his own.
Know when Trump's worm will turn on election interference? If Democrats pull off a massive tsunami victory in November, despite the Russians voting early and often for Republicans from coast to coast (because YES, they're helping Republicans, because Republicans don't care if Russia helps them win, not at long as they get their precious tax cuts and get to gut Medicare and Social Security), that is when Trump will start crying election interference. Because he is a pathological liar, he will start bitching and moaning and tweeting about how obviously the DEMOCRATS colluded with Russia, and that is why the DEMOCRATS now have 265 seats in the House.
You can take that one to the bank.
Meanwhile, does Vice President Mike Pence have anything to say, or is he still licking his wounds after that gay figure skater said no to him? Both, he's both saying things and licking himself:
Yeah, as Chris Hayes tweeted right there, literally none of the intelligence community has touched that question, because looking real hard to find the truth would be TOO SCARY.
In short, things are great, just great, a hostile foreign power is interfering with our elections, and the spies are the the only ones who care (as Wonk pal Charlie Pierce put it ). So let's go have some mid-terms!
Seriously, let's go have some fucking mid-terms. The only way we're going to beat this is to kick their asses so hard in the voting booths that the Russian subversion of our elections is rendered moot. Then we can really do something about it when we have ALL THE POWER.
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Trump's Spy Chiefs: Russia's Going To Fuck Us In 2018. Trump: FAAAAAAAAAART.
Don't you think that's a little sad, though? The most qualified candidate in history is unelectable primarily because she's a strong woman? I'm not saying she should run again. I'm saying this sucks, that there is so much antipathy towards the woman candidate, no matter how very qualified she might be. Is there a woman out there you would vote for, 9.8m/ss?
Yeah, it's almost as if acquiring and maintaining political/economic power is actually more important to them than any quaint notions of patriotism or the small-d democracy they pay lip service to in their campaign speeches. Or something.