This Senator Is Hell-Bent on Getting Out the Truth About Trump and Russia (David Corn- Mother Jones) [View all]
Last edited Sun Feb 5, 2017, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)
Reposting from Editorials and Other Articles from Friday. It got a lot of recs but then got lost in the weekend news. I didn't see any other postings on what Senator Wyden is saying about Trump and Russia and think it is really important info, especially with Pelosi now calling for a probe into blackmail.
"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."
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 is fighting for us. He's my senator and is definitely one of the good guys.
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