Then-candidate Donald Trump in New Hampshire in 2015. Photograph by Michael Vadon.
If you’re a lover of storytelling – as any writer is – the Russian hacking scandal is a great story.
And like any great story, it’s filled with conflict, complexity, intrigue and ambiguity. Just about the only thing everyone agrees on – sort of – is that the Democrats were hacked by the Russians. This is not news. We heard about it all during the campaign, when Donald Trump alternately debunked or doubted it.
What is new is that the CIA has concluded that the Russians did this deliberately to aid Trump. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have vowed to investigate, because if there’s one thing Congress hates – even more than cooperating with President Barack Obama, who has called for a full investigation – is Ruskies, especially Ruskies led by Vladimir “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin.
I don’t think it takes a CIA operative to deduce that if one group was hacked and another wasn’t, then it’s likely that the hackers favored one group over the other. It’s not likely that the hackers couldn’t hack a second American political party. Trump has spoken about the need to cooperate with Russia. Hillary Clinton has had an adversarial relationship with Vladdie. You do the math.
Of course, not everyone is convinced. The FBI doubts the evidence. Skeptics point to a thinness of sources. But even if it’s true, it doesn’t mean that Trump is culpable as well. As with Watergate, that would come down to what the president (elect) knew and when did he know it.
We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out. What I find fascinating, though, is the role reversal here. The Republicans have always been the party of homeland security, of “better dead than Red.” With Trump as the change catalyst, all bets now seem to be off.
But Trump, the emperor of conspiracy theories, also seems to have done an about-face. Remember the birther movement? Now Trump suggests Russian hacking is all about fabrication.
Guess conspiracy is in the eye of the beholder. Still, Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that he’s open to an investigation:
"President Obama's been terrific," Trump said. "I don't want anyone hacking us. And I'm not only talking about countries. I'm talking about anyone, period. But if you're going to do that, I think you should not just say Russia, you should say other countries also, and maybe other individuals.”