Republicans Don't Want to Find Out What Happened With Russia (arguments/tactics breakdown by Slate)
Republicans Don’t Want to Find Out What Happened With Russia
March 21
That’s why they spent the Comey hearing defending Trump and Michael Flynn—and attacking the FBI.
On Monday, the House Intelligence Committee interrogated FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about Russia’s covert operation to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. Comey confirmed that the FBI was investigating, among other things, whether anyone associated with Donald Trump had coordinated with the Russians. The committee is supposed to be conducting its own Russia probe. But Monday’s hearing showed that the Republicans who run the committee can’t be trusted.
In the five-hour hearing, not one Republican asked a question to elicit information about what Trump or his associates might have done. Instead, they hurled every imaginable defense—and attack—at the FBI’s investigation. While the Democrats acted like prosecutors, the committee’s Republicans became defense attorneys for Trump, Michael Flynn, the GOP, and Russia. Here’s a breakdown of their case:
1. There’s nothing to investigate. A real investigation would examine particular claims and evidence. Instead, Republicans on the committee tried to foreclose the whole inquiry by quoting broad statements (made by former intelligence officials on talk shows and the salon circuit) that no evidence exists. They also cynically stripped the statements of important caveats. When Comey and Rogers said they couldn’t rebut these statements about a lack of evidence (since to do so would reveal classified or investigation-related information), Republicans portrayed that as confirmation of Trump’s innocence. This is an attempt to end the investigation before it begins.
2. Russia wouldn’t have favored a Republican. Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee’s chairman, dismissed as absurd the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had sought to favor the Republican presidential nominee. “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous for anyone to say that the Russians prefer Republicans over Democrats?” he asked Comey and Rogers. When they tried to explain that their assessment was specific to Trump, and not about party, Nunes repeated his partisan view that the whole idea was “preposterous.”
3. Russia didn’t fabricate votes. To shift attention away from Russia’s indirect manipulation of votes—for example, leaking private emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton and persuaded people to vote against her—Nunes emphasized that Russia hadn’t tampered directly with voting machines. Rogers noted that the NSA and FBI hadn’t assessed the political effects of Russia’s operation. Nunes ignored him and shaped his questions to portray the Russian campaign as impotent.
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More - 15 points total, all worth reading:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/03/republicans_don_t_want_to_find_out_what_happened_with_russia.html?wpsrc=newsletter_tis&sid=589dfd6ebcb59c58118b45d5
= new reply since forum marked as read
