This Senator Is Hell-Bent on Getting Out the Truth About Trump and Russia (David Corn- Mother Jones)

[Amaryllis]

Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden says the Obama administration should have released more information before the election.

One of the most important men in Washington, DC, these days is Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. Sure, all senators are big shots. Even Democrats in the minority. But Wyden is in a special position: He can guarantee for the public whether or not an ongoing and (for now) behind-closed-doors investigation examining Vladimir Putin's operation to subvert the 2016 elections—and any possible ties between Donald Trump's circle and Russia—is conducted thoroughly and legitimately.

(snip)

One cause of this seeming quietude is that after several weeks of political controversy regarding how best to investigate the matter—with Democrats joined by a small number of Republicans (that is, Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio) calling for a robust inquiry—the Senate intelligence committee agreed to initiate its own probe. (The House intelligence community shortly followed suit.) After first being reluctant to include possible Trump-Russia ties in the investigation, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the Senate intelligence committee chair, relented. (Burr, no coincidence, was a member of the Trump campaign's national security advisory council.) But now that the intelligence committees are supposedly on the case—and with the FBI not discussing whatever inquiries it may be holding on this front—the controversy (or scandal!) has been nudged to the back burner. This often happens in Washington: a secret investigation is launched, the story goes dark. (When Trump had a call with Putin after his first week in office, there was no indication from the White House that the new president had said anything to Putin about the Russian covert interference in the election. A senior Trump administration official told the Washington Post the chat had been "pleasant.&quot

Enter Wyden. For the public, at this point, there is no way to tell if the intelligence committee is doing a good job investigating these dicey issues. Republicans on the committee certainly have an interest in not embarrassing, inconveniencing, or delegitimizing Trump. So it's up to Wyden and the other Democrats on the committee to monitor the probe and inform the citizenry if it ends up being a whitewash. And Wyden has already indicated that there is information on Trump-Russia ties within the US government that ought to be declassified, that he will push to keep the committee's inquiry on track, and that he will press to make as much of its findings as public as possible. In early January, during a rare public hearing of the Senate intelligence committee, which focused on the intelligence community's recently released report concluding Putin's regime had mounted the hacking to help Trump, Wyden pressed FBI Director James Comey on whether he would declassify information the bureau had obtained related to possible Trump-Russia connections and "release it to the American people" before Trump was inaugurated. No, Comey said, adding, "I can't talk about it." Wyden noted he was worried that if such information was not unveiled by then, it might never be—meaning, the incoming Trump administration would lock it up. And with this questioning, Wyden signaled that the FBI did indeed possess information on this subject.

Wyden failed to squeeze this material out of the FBI before Trump became president. But now he is in a position to tell the public if the Republican-led intelligence committee is doing an honest job with its all-important inquiry. A few days ago, I interviewed Wyden in his office and asked him about his role in this all-important project.

More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/ron-wyden-intelligence-committee-russia-trump-investigation

This statement is very important: "People normally think things are classified and buttoned up for national reasons. I find it's far more likely to be political security than national security."

So glad to know what's going on with this and that Wyden is on it. Lots of us have been afraid it would get swept under the rug. Wyden won't let this happen. He's my senator and is definitely one of the good guys.

[gopiscrap]

1. Excellent

[dem4decades]

2. We can only hope that McCain and Graham are as hell bent.

And why didn't Obama release further info, if NASA knew the climate data was in danger what chance did the Russian info have?

[Amaryllis]

3. I think we all would like to know Obama's reasoning for not releasing more before the election.

[jalan48]

10. And appointing a Republican, Comey, instead of a Democrat to head the FBI

[Mc Mike]

12. Excellent info in the article, Am. Thanks.

Just spitballing here, but I think that the repugs pulled their standard tricks here, committing treason and threatening civil war.

They showed they'll do anything for a win, even opening the door, to control of our nation, to a kgb strongman commie dictator who committed cyber espionage breaches of all kinds of secure American political and infrastructure institutions, for the purposes of getting the repug nazi elected.

The repug FBI partisans pushed false info about the Dem candidate being investigated for fake 'cybersecurity lapses', at the exact same time, right before the election. Corporate media trumpeted and flogged it. The Dem prez did not want to fire the repug FBI director and cause a media firestorm about a 'constitutional crisis', right before the election. (But notice how the Repug prez didn't mind firing that FBI director's boss, 2 weeks in, with no media hullabaloo about a 'constitutional crisis'). Every move the repugs made before the election showed they were daring Obama to 'start' a civil war.

Now we're in the novel position where we're supposed to 'seriously' discuss investigating the situation, with the repugs, about how the repugs and the commie dictator were in bed together to help the repugs win the election. The repug prez, the repug FBI head, and the repug party animals in the legislature will certainly give that notion all the attention they feel it deserves. Because they're so honest, and upright, and patriotic, etc.

I'm with your Sen all the way, he's 100% right. But the plutocrats that own the media in this country, whose interests lie with the repugs and fascism, wanted this outcome. Putting a Standard Oil of N J exec, who is Putin's special medal-awardee, in as Secretary of the State Dept, signalled exactly how aligned the interests of those plutocrats here are with Putin's interests. But the owners of Standard Oil own NBC, so go figure what kind of coverage we'll get from them on the issue.

Putin wanted dRumpf in, to screw up the country, to increase his own power and profit and control. Our plutocrats wanted that nazi puppet in, to increase their own power and profit and control. Screwing up this country gives our plutocrats more power and profit and control. They like war and depression, they never suffer and always win from those things. They love instability, it gives them an excuse to grab more power and control, more militarized police, martial law.

Environmental destruction leads to social upheaval (natural disasters, famines, droughts, pestilence, civil disorder, refugees, wars) and possible loss of control for our plutocrats, therefore is a driving force for the desire of our plutocrats for fascism, and Rex has very recently had 'troubles' for being a key part in his fine corporation's getting caught lying for decades about oil companies causing catastrophic climate changes, and covering up the scientific proof of it. That's just another key reason to look at dRumpfenfuhrer's appointment of this oil nazi to be our new Sec State, after dRumpf suspiciously 'won' against our old Sec State in the race for Prez, 'won' via cyber espionage from russian gov and our rightwing intel's agents.

The oil nazi end of our plutocrats threatened civil war, and the Dem prez and winning Dem candidate for prez did not want to be the ones who fired the first shot. The repugs signalled that they never cared about those kinds of niceties, and the repug owned media normalized it all.

I donated to Sen Wyden in the past, and am on his mailing list, and do e-actions he sends. He's doing the right thing, I'm with him all the way and am not advocating a defeatist viewpoint. But that's what he's fighting against, treasonous repugs threatening civil war, who never loved this country, and a corporate media that is owned by them. And Obama didn't want civil war.

That's one thesis, anyway.

[yurbud]

13. Democrats didn't release '80 October Surprise, or Nixon's '68 sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks..

They haven't acted on Republican malfeasance since Watergate, at least on the presidential level.

In return, they've earned the distrust of base of the party and a knife in the back from Republicans.

I hope they have finally learned their lesson.

[Amaryllis]

6. Wonder if Obama would have released more info if he'd known Hillary didnt have it in the bag.

[dem4decades]

9. Don't think any one was 100% on Hillary winning, he shouldn't have been.

I have to admit I though she had a 'blue wall' and a 'great ground game' and Trump had a "narrow path", god how I wish that was all true.

[onetexan]

15. Comey destabilized both the blue wall & ground game

with his announcement of false emails on Weiner's laptop the week before the elections.

[kimbutgar]

4. Well, with his administration making the wh press reapplying for press credentials

This might make them follow the story of Russian interference in our election. They created the monster and they have to take him down for his arrogance and dishonestly.

No access ..... then we will report other things involving chump.

[BadgerMom]

5. K & R

[Jakes Progress]

7. I don't live in Oregon, but I'm contributing

to his campaign when it starts.

Imagine that. A US senator that thinks the people ought to know what's going on.

[Amaryllis]

8. He and Merkley are both excellent. We are very fortunate to have them as senators.

[Jakes Progress]

11. Crap. We have cornyn and cruz. Ugh.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

14. Every single elected official in this country ought to be "Hellbent" on

investigating, exposing, and counteracting this sort of thing. That so many are not proves few of them are truly honorable servants of our country.