Biden Should Tell The Public What The Government Knows About Trump's Collusion
We have a right to know, because we have a right to a free and fair election; our norms can't be exploited to help a corrupt candidate cover up his cheating.
In 2016 senior Obama administration national-security officials wanted to apprise the country of Russian efforts to subvert the ongoing election—to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton through acts of criminal sabotage. But the officials also wanted buy-in from top Republicans on Capitol Hill. They imagined a unified, bipartisan front would tip off the media and discerning members of the public that this was the real deal.
But when they briefed congressional leaders about the underlying intelligence, and asked for their cooperation, then-Senate Majority Leader McConnell shut them down: Not only did he refuse to attach his name to a joint statement, but warned that if the officials went ahead without him, and mentioned Russia’s partisan motivations, he would accuse them of politicizing U.S. intelligence services to help Hillary Clinton.
The administration blinked. They instead released an unusual, concerning, but ultimately vague statement about the subversion campaign, but without ascribing motive. “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations,” the statement read. “The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.”
By the time they got around to releasing it on October 7, then-FBI Director James Comey had withdrawn his name, as well, for the darkly comic reason that it was too close to November for the FBI to be making statements about the election. The only signatories were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
McConnell’s coverup didn’t last forever. We went on to learn of the intelligence community’s strong consensus that Russia intervened in the election to help Trump. We also learned that connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence ran deep, and that the two entities cooperated in this sabotage effort. But by then it was much too late. Trump won the election as a popular vote loser by the narrowest of Electoral College margins, and went on to do untold damage to the United States. The big blink turns out to have been a big mistake.
It’s wrong to say history is repeating itself, because it never really stopped. Russia tried to help Trump win in 2020 through a botched effort to smear Joe Biden, which ultimately saw Trump corrupt the U.S. foreign policy process. When Biden won anyhow, the operation simply continued, and ultimately, through the dissemination of fabricated evidence, formed the basis of a fictional corruption scandal that has damaged Biden over years and culminated in a Republican effort to impeach him.
The government’s meager deterrence efforts clearly haven’t worked. With all that damage done—enough perhaps to explain his two point deficit in national polls—Biden should commit to ensuring this foul partnership produces no further success. He can do this by keeping the public informed of any ongoing cooperation between Russia, the Trump campaign, and Trump’s allies in the GOP as we approach the November election. Trump may win anyhow, but at least we’ll have been warned.
SMIRNOV WEISS
Biden knows from experience that exposing an adversary’s devious plans before they’ve been executed can reduce their effectiveness and sway public opinion.