Nah, no need for an independent inquiry
by digby
I'm sure the GOP congress will not be persuaded by this. But it's probably good to get them on the record opposing it anyway.
Several high-profile intelligence experts have signed a letter in support of legislation calling to create a bipartisan commission to look into “foreign interference” during the 2016 election that was introduced by House Democrats last month.
Among the letter’s signers are former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and former Acting Director of the CIA Michael Morrell.
“To understand fully and publicly what happened, how we were so vulnerable, and what we can do to protect our democracy in future elections, we the undersigned strongly encourage the Congress to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate efforts by the Russian Federation to influence or interfere with the U.S. presidential election in 2016,” the letter, which was obtained early by BuzzFeed News, states.
The letter also warns that “some have questioned whether the Russian government, despite the conclusion of 17 of our intelligence agencies, was really responsible for the hacks. Such doubts only reinforce why an independent, inquiry should occur outside of Congress.”
“This inquiry should occur immediately. Anything less than a swift investigation will leave us vulnerable to another attack and, possibly worse, permit and normalize future interference.”
Democratic Reps. Elijah Cummings and Eric Swalwell introduced legislation to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the hacks, but no House Republican members have yet expressed support.
Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in December he would not open a new investigation into the cyberattacks, stating that he believed the effort would be redundant. Nunes’ office confirmed to BuzzFeed News that his position remains the same.
This will be my "imagine if" post of the day.
Imagine if there was some evidence that foreign agents had meddled in the election on behalf of the Democratic candidate and that candidate had lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but won by winning around 80,000 votes across a few winner take all states. Can we imagine that the Republicans would not be amassing in the streets with pitchforks and torches right now? I actually think there would have been some serious violence.
Dems aren't inclined to roll that way but it's still a good idea for them to keep pushing for inquiries into what happened. You never know what might shake loose. And it's actually a good idea. If all of this stuff bout Russian hacking is massive conspiracy among the the intelligence agency analysts, the white house and private firms that have looked into it, we really need to know that.
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