A long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report admonishes politicians to forget about politics when dealing with election interference operations and to exercise maximum restraint before suggesting an election was hacked or corrupted.
Good luck with that.
“Restraint” is not the operative word in the Trump era. The bipartisan report arrived just days after President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale suggested without evidence on Twitter that a long delay in reporting Iowa caucuses results was because of a #RiggedElection. In fact, the count was marred by technical issues.
And while the Republican-run committee states “the President of the United States should take steps to separate himself or herself from political considerations when handling issues related to foreign influence operations,” Trump has not been living by that mantra. Nor has he been “explicitly putting aside politics when addressing the American people on election threats.” …
A separate addendum from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) knocks the Obama administration for not informing lawmakers and the public more quickly about the scope and scale of Russian activities.
The full report stops short of faulting the Obama administration for that but warns that in future interference campaigns the public should be notified as quickly as possible.