Putting politics ahead of national security is a what brought us here in the first place.
The question of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia never kept me awake at night, but the failure of our intelligence community to counter the threat from Russia did, and still does. Allowing politics to creep into what should have been a counterintelligence effort weakened our country and fundamentally damaged our national security.
To brush off the threat of a concerted effort by a hostile intelligence service to target Americans for both recruitment and intelligence gathering efforts, regardless of its legality, is a significant misstep and a danger to our national security. After all, it seems unlikely that Russia would have had its spies sit this one out, relying solely on hacking and disinformation operations launched from the safety of Moscow.
For the Obama administration, the fear of the Russian threat had to be balanced with concerns about the effect of public disclosure and the appearance of putting their thumb on free and open elections.
What they found was rejection of a unilateral front by Senator Mitch McConnell who agreed to release a letter in September of 2016 warning of threats to our election system, but steadfastly refused to mention that the fear was focused on Russia. It was that move that closed the window on objectively disclosing the threat to the American public. It did not matter that President Obama warned Putin over the red phone of a “grave” threat.
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