In keeping with my policy of "no news on the weekends" I was so eager to flip on NPR for my commute this morning. What I heard was, well, simultaneously unsurprising and intriguing with serious implications for the President-Elect and the two major political parties.
Word on the grapevine is that the CIA (among other of our 17 intelligence agencies) have reached the conclusion that Russians hacked into both the Democratic and Republican National Committee databases, then promptly provided information to aid the candidacy of the President-Elect in the contentious 2016 Election. Why? God knows, but I have to say that the gravity of what the accusations are, who is implicated and the timing makes speculation grossly irresponsible.
So let's look at what's come out so far. Four senators, two Republican and two Democrat, including John McCain and Chuck Schumer released a statement condemning the action and calling for an investigation. This presumably would be on top of the investigation into the matter already ordered by the Obama administration. Mitch McConnell has also condemned any interference into our democracy, but stopped short of calling for an outright investigation. And the President-Elect's own Chief of Staff has said this should be looked in to.
Should this be looked in to as a large (and increasing in size) chunk of Washington, notably not including the President-Elect, says that it should. And what does this mean for US-Russian relations which have turned frosty over the past 5 years? I'm actually genuinely interested in what you people think.