Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:46 pm
Both advocates and members of Congress are calling for a Select Committee investigation after top US intelligence agencies released a report that finds that Russia influenced the presidential election to support Donald Trump.
Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement:
The newly declassified intelligence report clearly shows that Congress must act swiftly to create a Select Committee to review the findings of this report in a nonpartisan manner and make recommendations moving forward. The integrity of our elections and national security were attacked and the issue has become too partisan to proceed through normal committee channels on Capitol Hill. The information in the report provides evidence that Vladimir Putin ordered and the Russian government was directly involved in hacking both Democratic and Republican groups and attempted to influence the outcome of the election in favor of President-elect Trump. Russia’s activities are a serious affront to our free nation, our democratic values, and our sovereignty. To fully protect our democracy and ensure this intrusion is not repeated, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must immediately follow the recommendation of Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Jack Reed, and Chuck Schumer to create a bipartisan Select Committee. The findings of this report demand a Select Committee to review and make recommendations and ensure that American voters know the full extent of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said, “That any foreign power could influence an American election should send shivers down the spines of both political parties, regardless of which party benefited this time around. The Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees have been tasked with fully investigating Russian interference in our election, but if those committees do not have access to all of the relevant intelligence, operate in a truly bipartisan way, and make their findings public to the maximum extent practicable, we will need to establish a Select Committee to get to the bottom of this. We need to confront this interference head on, in an aggressive and bipartisan manner. If we don’t, it’ll be open season for any foreign power who wants to cause trouble in our elections.”
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said, “It is one thing to say that there was no tampering with vote tallying — which is true — it is another thing to say that the daily dumping of documents disparaging to Secretary Clinton that was made possible by Russian cyber operations had no effect on the campaigns Whether [Russia] had a decisive impact on the outcome will never be known and was certainly not the subject of the intelligence community’s analysis, but that they were of great consequence is undeniable.”
Republicans are trying to bury this story because they are afraid that it will cripple the already wounded Trump presidency. What is undeniable is that the intelligence community’s consensus findings that Russian meddled in the election to assist Donald Trump.
The report could not have come at a worse time for Trump and the Republicans. The GOP is already mired in an Obamacare repeal mess of their own creation that suddenly looks like it is going to consume Trump’s first one hundred days in office.
The questions about the Trump/Russia connection are not going to go away. A president who was already facing legitimacy questions due to losing the popular vote is facing a scandal that is one smoking gun away from devastating his presidency before it even begins.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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