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Saturday, January 19, 2019

Remember when Mitch McConnell covered up Putin's interference to elect Trump?


TOPSHOT - Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walks to the Senate floor on Capitol Hill September 28, 2018 in Washington, DC. - The US Senate Judiciary Committee gave its backing to Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's embattled pick for the Supreme Court, one day after he fought off allegations of sexual assault at a dramatic day-long hearing that riveted the nation. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)        (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
With Individual 1 sinking deeper and deeper into impeachment territory, it's worth remembering that he didn't get there without a lot of help from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who's currently carrying his water by refusing to vote on reopening government.

McConnell's willingness to jeopardize the nation by going along with this manufactured crisis is one thing. But his efforts to keep the nation in the dark about what the government knew—before the election—about Russia's interference on behalf of Trump is quite another. For if there's a whiff of illegality around Trump for his Russia dealings and coverup efforts, then it has to surround McConnell, too.

Remember that in 2016, when it became clear after Trump had secured the nomination that Russia was interfering, and the nation's intelligence agencies had that information and presented it to congressional leadership, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell covered it up. He and then Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid were told that Putin was overseeing an operation to disrupt the election and to help Trump. McConnell's reaction, in the words of Washington Post reporter Greg Miller, who initially broke this story: "'McConnell is basically telling [the CIA], 'you're telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump. If you try to come forward with this, I'm not going to sign onto any sort of public statement that would condemn Russian interference. But I will condemn you and the Obama administration for trying to mess up this election.'"

The briefing from the CIA had Reid so alarmed that he wrote, and made public, a letter to then-FBI chief James Comey, saying "The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and presidential campaign continues to mount and has led Michael Morrell, the former Acting Central Intelligence Director, to call Trump an ‘unwitting agent’ of Russia and the Kremlin. The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one of the greatest threats toward democracy since the Cold War ..."

The evidence presented to Reid that so alarmed him was also presented to McConnell. He knew full well that the CIA was deeply concerned before the election, and made the decision to cover it up. McConnell also knew full well that Russia wanted to get involved in our elections, because his own leadership PAC received a cool $2.5 million filtered through Len Blavatnik, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, from a web of Putin's oligarchs. He started getting that money in 2015, and kept on getting it through at least 2017. Among those business associates of Blavatnik is none other than Oleg Deripaska, Paul Manafort's boss both in Ukraine and while he was nominally working on the Trump campaign.

McConnell is deep into this, at least up to his third chin. He is by no means an innocent bystander. Every action he takes—including his refusal to do his constitutional job and stand up to Trump on the government shutdown—has to be viewed through the filter of his complicity with Trump's lawlessness.

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