Obama Must Declassify Evidence of Russian Hacking
Taking Donald Trump’s position — that we should just ignore the question of Russian hacking and “move on” — would be a disaster.
" Here are two of political history’s great constants: first, countries meddling in the internal affairs of others (both enemies and “friends”); and, second, bogus charges from a faction in one country that foreigners are meddling in its internal affairs to help another faction.
Both are poison for any country that wishes to rule itself.
So if we’re serious about being a self-governing republic, we have to demand that President Obama declassify as much intelligence as possible that Russia may have intervened in the 2016 presidential election.
Taking Donald Trump’s position — that we should just ignore the question of Russian hacking and “move on” — would be a disaster.
Relying on a hazy war of leaks from the CIA, FBI, various politicians, and their staff is an equally terrible idea.
A congressional investigation would be somewhat better, but that would take years — like the investigations of the intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction — and would be fatally compromised by the Democrats’ political timidity and GOP opposition.
The only path forward that makes sense is for Obama to order the release of as much evidence as possible underlying the reported “high confidence” of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia both intervened in the election and did so with the intention of aiding Trump’s candidacy.
Intelligence agencies hate, often with good reason, to publicly reveal how they obtain information, or even the information itself, since that can make it clear how they got it. But the government would not need to reveal its most sensitive sources and methods — e.g., which specific Vladimir Putin aides we have on our payroll — to release enough evidence to aid the public debate over interference in our election by a powerful nation state. "
