Lost in the above was the context whence it comes ---- this statement was part of the Rump reaction to the CIA's conclusion that
.
>> The report highlights and exacerbates the increasingly fraught situation in which congressional Republicans find themselves with regard to Russia and Trump. By acknowledging and digging into the
increasing evidence that Russia helped — or at least attempted to help — tip the scales in Trump’s favor, they risk raising questions about whether Trump would have won without Russian intervention.
Trump, after all, won by
a margin of about 80,000 votes cast across three states, winning each of the decisive states by less than one percentage point. So even a slight influence could have plausibly made the difference, though we'll never be able to prove it one way or another.
The Post's report cited Republicans who expressed skepticism about the available evidence when presented with it in September, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
... In addition, any GOP effort to dig into the matter risks antagonizing the president-elect, who has said flatly that he doesn’t believe Russia interfered with the election,
despite receiving intelligence briefings to the contrary. And he's proved more than willing to go after fellow Republicans who run afoul of him.
On the other hand, if Republicans play down the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power that significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress do not trust and which, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyberwarfare with the United States.
Already, House Democrats have begun pushing for
something akin to the 9/11 Commission to look into allegations of Russian meddling. During the campaign, they pushed for hearings on the same issue.
Until this week, they'd been unable to get much buy-in from congressional Republicans. But Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) voiced support for a probe on Wednesday, and now Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he is working with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on a wide-ranging Senate probe,
as The Post’s Karoun Demirjian reported Thursday. <<
>> Many Republicans are undoubtedly concerned about this. But as long as Trump is holding fast to the idea that this is all made up in an effort to undermine him, this whole thing could reinforce the long-standing chasm within the GOP, with him and his base pitted against establishment Republicans who will (again) be made to look like they’re trying to take down their outsider president-elect. And you can bet that’ll be how Trump pitches it.
It all presents a possibly inauspicious start for the GOP Congress in the Trump era: a potential Trump vs. congressional-Republicans-battle over the same election that surprisingly installed him as president. <<