In the tumble toward the 2020 election, as Donald Trump was already pre-declaring that he had been cheated out of an election months before the election even happened, Senate Republicans did a pretty smart thing. They released the results of a bipartisan, multi-year investigation into the connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. The resulting series of reports from the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee was far more damning than the Mueller report. It documented more than 100 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian agents, pulled no punches about how Russia interfered in the election expressly to help Trump, detailed how Trump’s campaign chair was forwarding information to Vladimir Putin, and explained how Trump’s campaign team eagerly sought additional assistance from the Kremlin.
In short, that Senate report confirmed that all the substantive claims about Trump’s connections to Russia were absolutely true. And somehow, amazingly, everyone seemed to immediately forget all about it as soon as it appeared.
The national media went on to ignore both Putin’s interference in the 2020 election and his cheering on of the Jan 6. insurrection. And now, as it turns out, the other authoritarian who did his best to destroy American democracy is upset that the Jan. 6 committee is trying to save it. Because for his plans to work, Putin needs Trump.
As The Daily Beast reports, Putin may be the only world leader who seems even more outraged about the investigation into January 6 than Trump. Russia’s state media has been drooling over every report that President Joe Biden’s popularity is down. Just as they have done for decades, they’ve been recycling Republican statements about inflation and immigration to “prove” to Moscow audiences that the United States is a hellhole tottering on the brink of collapse. And, of course, they’ve been using Republican statements about the LGBTQ community to show that Putin was absolutely right to persecute that community in Russia.
But for Putin, there’s one thing that really stands out as a disappointment—Jan. 6. After all, Trump may have been this close to becoming dictator for whatever remains of his life, but Putin was about to really win it all. If things had gone the other way on Jan. 6, it would have been a victory beyond Vladimir Lenin’s wildest dream. An authoritarian United States that breaks away from democracy, ditches NATO, and embraces an isolationist white nationalist leader with a fondness for big military parades?
The effect on domestic politics in the United States might have been shattering; for the rest of the world, it would have been an absolute reset of history. Putin was one moment away from hanging a Soviet banner over an endless empire. So it’s no surprise that the person most angry about the revelations being produced by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 may be all the way around the globe, at one end of a very long table, in the middle of Red Square.
However, what might be most interesting is not Putin pushing the MAGA line in calling for an investigation into the death of Ashli Babbitt, but the assumptions about where all this is going. Because now that Russian state media has been forced to notice the Jan. 6 hearings and the information they are producing, Russian experts seem to have come to one conclusion about Trump. That conclusion involves orange jumpsuits. Russian state television hosts reportedly believe that criminal prosecution of Trump is “all but inevitable.”
How Russia is presenting the Jan. 6 hearings shows what a threat they represent to Putin’s dreams. Criminal prosecution of Trump is being called “an obvious step towards a dictatorship.” Like what happens in Russia if someone is foolish enough to run against Putin, or admit to supporting peace. (But hey, Russia certainly doesn’t have a problem with too many immigrants trying to get in.)
The biggest concern for Putin is that the hearings will throw off the most important plan in all of Moscow at the moment—waiting for the Republicans to help them win the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has been all-in on their support of Republican candidates in the House and Senate, fully understanding that with compliant Republicans in control of Congress, the flow of weapons and intelligence to Ukraine can be chopped back to the bone. With the Russian military making slow progress, suffering heavy losses, and facing more and more NATO weaponry, a Republican win is more important to Putin than it is to Kevin McCarthy’s ego.
Political scientists in Russia are counting on the higher gas prices caused in large part by restricting the sale of Russian gas to make dropping sanctions and surrendering Ukraine in exchange for relief at the pump to be a bargain Republicans can sell in November. And with Republicans in control, they expect weapon deliveries from the United States to fall to a trickle. A Republican win in November is an integral part of Putin’s war plan in Ukraine.
That’s the biggest thing making the Jan. 6 hearings super-scary to the Kremlin. “We need to understand what’s going to happen in the electoral sense,” said Dmitry Abzalov, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications. “The internal political component is extremely significant. The most important events on our political calendar are local elections in Great Britain as well as a very difficult situation in July and August, since the midterms in the U.S. actually start during summer months. Every Thursday they’ll be lynching Trump in prime time.”
Now Russian media is actively contemplating what they can do to save Trump. Because getting Republicans in charge of Congress is key to them winning Ukraine.
And if they could get Trump back in office … that’s everything.
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