Steve Benen comments on right fringe House member Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) opinion that the theft of DNC materials by the Russians are less important than their release:
… a far-right Donald Trump ally for most of 2016, appeared on MSNBC earlier today and echoed Putin’s talking point:
“I’m all for doing what’s necessary to protect the election here, but there’s no suggestion that Russia hacked into our voting systems or anything like that. If anything, whatever they may have done, was to try to use information in a way that may have affected something that they believe was in their best interest.
“But the bottom line, if they succeeded – if Russia succeeded – in giving the American people information that was accurate, then they merely did what the media should have done.”
I get the feeling Trent Franks hasn’t thought this one through.
Maybe the congressman is confused about the basic details of the controversy. Someone – Russian agents, according to U.S. intelligence agencies – stole Democratic materials by way of a cyber-attack and released those materials in order to subvert the American political system.
There’s two problems with Steve’s remarks.
First, he’s letting Franks set the assumption that the leaked material was actually accurate. We don’t know that. All we know is Wikileaks released something. Frankly, we need a national conversation regarding the trustworthiness of such leaked material, since, by its nature, it cannot be verified. Honestly, we don’t know if the Russians just made shit up. In general, the same applies. Is Wikileaks actually one of the greatest con games ever concocted?
Second, the leaks really aren’t the problem. The real problem was the concerted Russian effort to subvert our news culture with its own versions of the news, tuned to discredit Russia’s greatest foes and support Russia’s allies in American culture. This has been documented and strikes me as far worse than the ethical confusion, real as it is, of Rep. Franks.
This all leads to the collapsing morals of the Fox News conservatives. Voting for a man whose lies per day during the campaign overwhelmed fact checkers, leading to Trump trying to ignore the Russia controversy, as noted by CNN:
President-elect Donald Trump said it’s time for the US to “move on to bigger and better things” following the sanctions announced by President Barack Obama Thursday against Russia, but said he’d be briefed next week about the issue.
“It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation,” Trump said in a statement.
His remarks are similar to what he said late Wednesday evening that Americans should “get on with our lives” when he was asked about the expected White House announcement.
I wish I was a cartoonist, because my next cartoon would be off Trump getting a bunch of papers labeled Moscow jammed right up his ass by President Obama while still trying to sing about Moving On! His attitude is shameful and disrespectful of our democratic system.
As is the power-hungry GOP‘s.
