Republican operatives say no one but Trump would have dismissed the intelligence this way.
WASHINGTON ― In an alternate universe, the Republican nominee for president holds a news conference to denounce Russian interference in the coming election. He calls out the long-known links between Russian spy agencies and WikiLeaks, and urges American voters to ignore the daily release of stolen emails designed to cripple his Democratic rival.
In this parallel reality, Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or John Kasich states clearly that he doesn’t want any help from Russian leader Vladimir Putin and that Putin’s involvement would bring dire consequences.
“Not only would we have called for an investigation, we would have been leading the charge to drop the anvil on the head of the foreign power that did this,” said John Weaver, a top aide to Ohio Gov. Kasich’s presidential campaign. “It would have been smart politically, and it also would have been the right thing to do.”
None of that, though, happened.
Instead, actual GOP nominee Donald Trump welcomed the assistance of WikiLeaks, at one point even asking the Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton’s computers, and went out of his way to praise Putin – all of which has now put the president-elect in a bind between siding with his benefactors on the one hand or the entire U.S. intelligence community on the other.
“The difference used to be that whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, you didn’t want a foreign power intervening and corrupting our elections,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant who worked for independent candidate Evan McMullin. “A normal candidate would no more have relished Putin’s help than he would have accepted the help of al-Qaeda.”
But Trump repeatedly belittled U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia was meddling in the campaign. During the Oct. 10 presidential debate, he claimed that no one could actually know if Russia had done the hacking and that perhaps there had not actually been any hacking. He said that just three days after the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence issued an extraordinary statement that specifically named both Russia and WikiLeaks.
This past Friday, Trump received a formal briefing from the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI stating not only that Russia hacked the emails of Democratic Party officials and disseminated them through WikiLeaks, but that Putin specifically wanted to help Trump win.
In Weaver’s view, that session was unnecessary for anyone who had simply paid attention to the presidential campaign during the summer and autumn. “You could’ve been Inspector Clouseau and figured out what was going on. You didn’t need an FBI briefing,” he said.
Yet Trump’s response to the report? That none of it really mattered anyway.
“There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election,” Trump said in a prepared statement.
“I don’t understand what Trump’s motivation is,” the consultant added, running through the hypotheticals. “Does he just admire Putin? Are they blackmailing him? Are they paying him? They could be paying $1 million a day and we’d never know.”
More: Putin Lucked Into The Only GOP Nominee Who Would've Wanted His Help
I agree! This is the most bizarre political event in my lifetime! American democracy is in grave danger.
WASHINGTON ― In an alternate universe, the Republican nominee for president holds a news conference to denounce Russian interference in the coming election. He calls out the long-known links between Russian spy agencies and WikiLeaks, and urges American voters to ignore the daily release of stolen emails designed to cripple his Democratic rival.
In this parallel reality, Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or John Kasich states clearly that he doesn’t want any help from Russian leader Vladimir Putin and that Putin’s involvement would bring dire consequences.
“Not only would we have called for an investigation, we would have been leading the charge to drop the anvil on the head of the foreign power that did this,” said John Weaver, a top aide to Ohio Gov. Kasich’s presidential campaign. “It would have been smart politically, and it also would have been the right thing to do.”
None of that, though, happened.
Instead, actual GOP nominee Donald Trump welcomed the assistance of WikiLeaks, at one point even asking the Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton’s computers, and went out of his way to praise Putin – all of which has now put the president-elect in a bind between siding with his benefactors on the one hand or the entire U.S. intelligence community on the other.
“The difference used to be that whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, you didn’t want a foreign power intervening and corrupting our elections,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant who worked for independent candidate Evan McMullin. “A normal candidate would no more have relished Putin’s help than he would have accepted the help of al-Qaeda.”
But Trump repeatedly belittled U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia was meddling in the campaign. During the Oct. 10 presidential debate, he claimed that no one could actually know if Russia had done the hacking and that perhaps there had not actually been any hacking. He said that just three days after the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence issued an extraordinary statement that specifically named both Russia and WikiLeaks.
This past Friday, Trump received a formal briefing from the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the FBI stating not only that Russia hacked the emails of Democratic Party officials and disseminated them through WikiLeaks, but that Putin specifically wanted to help Trump win.
In Weaver’s view, that session was unnecessary for anyone who had simply paid attention to the presidential campaign during the summer and autumn. “You could’ve been Inspector Clouseau and figured out what was going on. You didn’t need an FBI briefing,” he said.
Yet Trump’s response to the report? That none of it really mattered anyway.
“There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election,” Trump said in a prepared statement.
"You could’ve been Inspector Clouseau and figured out what was going on. You didn’t need an FBI briefing."
--John Weaver, campaign aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich
--John Weaver, campaign aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich
“I don’t understand what Trump’s motivation is,” the consultant added, running through the hypotheticals. “Does he just admire Putin? Are they blackmailing him? Are they paying him? They could be paying $1 million a day and we’d never know.”
More: Putin Lucked Into The Only GOP Nominee Who Would've Wanted His Help
I agree! This is the most bizarre political event in my lifetime! American democracy is in grave danger.
