The swirl of daily news has turned into a maelstrom, sucking us daily into its dark, depressing vortex. We can barely remember what we were thinking about five minutes ago much less what is important. This week it is Kavanaugh. A few weeks or a million years ago it was Manafort. Remember Comey, Charlottesville, Sean Spicer? Of course, you don’t.
Every so often we are reminded however, that there are bigger issues in play than the news cycle, issues on which history may turn. A new book by Washington Post National Security reporter Greg Miller may help provide just such a reminder. The book, entitled, “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy” which is on sale today, provides new and detailed insights into how the most significant attack on America since 9/11 unfolded and who helped it succeed. It provides a useful jolt to return our focus to the fact that the President of the United States and his allies in the GOP may have worked to support or encourage Russia’s campaign to tip the 2016 election to Trump, a momentous, unprecedented and destabilizing moment for the country.
In an appearance on CNN, Miller, a Pulitzer-Prize winner widely respected in DC national security circles, describes how as the U.S. Intelligence Community discovered the Russian efforts to influence the last presidential election and that those efforts were overseen by Vladimir Putin himself, they sought to sound the alarm. CIA Director John Brennan dutifully went to Congress to inform them of the plot, its origins and its potential consequences.
One of those he met with was, of course, the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell. Brennan describes what they know. He is trying to rouse them into action. He is doing precisely what he should be doing. And the response he gets from McConnell is stupefying. As Miller describes it to CNN, Brennan lays out the information and the Majority Leader “is basically telling him, ‘You’re telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump (but) if you come forward with this, I’m not going to sign on to 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.”
Why does he do it? To protect his own political interests…interests he clearly puts ahead of US national security. Obama has gotten some fair criticism for not sounding the alarm more loudly as the Russians attacked. But part of the reason clearly lies with the position of McConnell and the clear threat that any responsible public declaration of the threat by Obama would be turned into a political sideshow by the Republicans.
One can debate whether what McConnell did was treason. It probably does not meet the legal standard. But it was surely aiding and abetting a U.S. enemy in the middle of an attack on the country. It was a clear betrayal of the American people, a violation of his oath of office and a dereliction of his duties as a Senator. In other times, not only would it be investigated by the Senate but it would and should lead to his removal from office.
McConnell has time and time again shown he places party above all. Sometimes, his actions have simply been an example of the scorched earth practices of the worst of both parties—as when he announced his intentions to defeat Obama before the new president had a chance to even establish himself. Sometimes they are worse, as when he has repeatedly served the interests of the NRA against those of the American people or promoted tax reforms that hurt the country fiscally, helped a precious few rich folks and cost the vast majority of Americans. Occasionally, they produce grievous damage to our institutions as with the shameless derailing of the candidacy of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court or the effort to railroad a clearly unqualified candidate for the court like Brett Kavanaugh into a lifetime position as an associate justice.
But what McConnell did back in 2016 may be seen by history as his most infamous act. He defended not the Constitution but Vladimir Putin. He turned away not an enemy but the efforts of the intelligence community to protect us. He weakened the country. He strengthened Russia. And he helped put a compromised, corrupt president into office.
Thus far, he has gotten away with this. Books like Miller’s will certainly help refocus Americans on McConnell’s despicable behavior. That is a step in the right direction, toward the reckoning that McConnell so richly deserves and one that he will not be able to sidestep through procedure or a perversion of Senate rules—the verdict of history, a verdict that will surely see him as one of the few true enemies of the U.S. that our political system has ever placed in positions of real, destructive power.
