As if the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath were not already bizarre enough, we are now dealing with a widespread obsession over Russian efforts to interfere with the election. It’s been known for some time that the Russians were responsible for hacking Democratic sources and providing a trove of hacked emails to Wikileaks. The U.S. Government, through the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, issued a public statement to this effect in October. What recently gave new life to this is the reported conclusion by unnamed CIA officials, expressed in post-election congressional briefings, that the intelligence community now considers it “quite clear” that Russia’s actions were intended not only to undermine confidence in the election but also to help elect Trump. According to the latest report, the FBI and Director of National Intelligence are now on board with this conclusion and these officials, as well as President Obama, assume that Putin directly approved the Russian actions.
The conclusion that the Russians sought to elect Trump ignited a political firestorm. In keeping with the sad post-election pattern, it also brought out the worst in both sides. Democrats, still in denial over Trump’s win, used it to bolster their last-ditch efforts to nullify the election result by perverting the electoral college process. Consistent with his childish and fact-free overreaction to even the slightest provocation, Trump brushed off any conclusions about Russian involvement as “ridiculous” and proceeded to disparage the intelligence services he will need to rely on as president.
What to make of this latest sorry episode? Here are a few observations.
Even if Russia’s actions were intended to favor Trump (a fair assumption), this is no reason for Americans to help Putin undermine our electoral process.
Democrats used the “stunning new judgment” about Russian favoritism toward Trump as another reason why electoral college members should “blow up the system” by overturning the election result and denying Trump the presidency. At the very least, they argued, the electoral college vote should be delayed until the electors received an intelligence briefing on the Russian actions. The Clinton campaign, through John Podesta, supported the call for an intelligence briefing of electors.
It’s now clear that there will be no such briefing. But what useful purpose could this briefing have served? It’s fair to assume from what’s already publicly known that the Russians were trying to help Trump and/or hurt Clinton. Such an intent can reasonably be inferred from the very nature of their actions. The flood of leaked emails from Russian hacking targeted only Clinton’s side and was relentlessly negative toward her and those associated with her. Presumably an intelligence briefing would simply provide more circumstantial evidence supporting this common sense and fairly obvious conclusion. (The one wild card is whether the Russians also tried to hack Republication sources; if so, whether they succeeded; and if they succeeded, why they didn’t leak information from Republican hacking. However, there is apparently no consensus among government agencies on these questions.)
Assuming, then, that the Russians were on Trump’s side, could that conclusion legitimately affect the electoral college vote? The mere fact that Russia wanted Trump to win (or Clinton to lose) obviously is not grounds to invalidate his election victory and award the election to her as the anti-Russian candidate. It might be a different story if Russia’s intervention determined the election outcome. However, it’s impossible to know what, if any, impact Russia’s actions had on the election result. There’s certainly no credible evidence on which an elector could conclude that Russia’s actions were decisive and change his or her vote on that basis. Indeed, the leaked emails do not loom large (at least up to now) among the numerous factors cited in most election postmortems. This is not surprising. While the emails were embarrassing and reflected negatively on Clinton, they contained no bombshell revelations. Rather, they generally reinforced perceptions about Clinton (and her associates) that were already widely held.
For the above reasons, demands for electors to vote against the will of the electorates in their States or to delay the electoral college vote based on the Russian actions had no objective merit and, appropriately, no chance of success. What these demands have accomplished, however, is to play into Putin’s hands by helping him undermine confidence in the election. Whether or not Russia was specifically playing favorites, virtually everyone (but Trump) agrees that one of its goals was to undercut faith in our democracy. In this regard, the Washington Post reports:
“CIA and FBI officials do not think Russia had a ‘single purpose’ by intervening during the presidential campaign, officials said. In addition to the goal of helping elect Trump, Putin aimed to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, intelligence officials have told lawmakers.”
Ironically, the Democrats and their allies have used Russia’s interference as a justification (along with Clinton’s popular vote “win”) for their efforts to disrupt the electoral college process, nullify the election result, and generally undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s election. It’s likely that their efforts have enabled Putin to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. The longer anti-Trump forces persist in trying to delegitimize the election result, the more they will advance Putin’s cause.
Politicizing the Russian actions will seriously impede an effective investigation of these actions.
As discussed above, Russia’s apparent motive to help Trump is, in the final analysis, essentially a political red herring in terms of the 2016 election result itself. However, the far worse consequence is that this focus on motive distracts attention from the much more important issues of how the hacks succeeded and what can be done to prevent cyber attacks by the Russians or others on future elections. The more this subject is politicized by emphasizing Russia’s desire to help Trump, the more it will impede an objective investigation into the latter issues. Democrats likely will continue to stress Russia’s preference for Trump as a means to undermine his legitimacy as president. Trump and his allies likely will push back against this by resisting or even preventing a full and objective investigation.
A key aspect of this broader subject that also risks being lost to politics is the danger that that the Russians (or others) could do greater damage to future elections by hacking into our election machinery and related infrastructure. According to computer security experts, it is doubtful that the Russians hacked the election process itself this year. However, this apparently remains a real threat for the future—and one with more direct and serious potential consequences than hacking emails. The security experts advocate audits of election results as well as reviews and enhancements of security safeguards. Unfortunately, Jill Stein’s quixotic pursuit of recounts in three States politicized this aspect of the problem as well. Her frivilous efforts may end up obscuring the seriousness of this problem. Hopefully, investigations of Russian email hacking this year will overcome her distractions and include cyber threats to the security of our election infrastructure.
Finding the right source(s) to conduct a credible investigation of Russia’s actions this year and future cyber threats to our elections will be challenging.
There are now calls for congressional investigations into Russia’s interference this year. But congressional investigations usually are the worst way to get to the bottom of serious and complicated issues like these. One problem, of course, is partisanship. The calls for congressional investigations pay lip service to the need for bipartisanship and insist that the investigations should not “relitigate” the election result. As noted above, however, Russia’s actions already are being widely used for this purpose. It’s unlikely that this will change even after Trump is formally elected and takes office. The more Democrats push this theme, the more Trump and his supporters will push back. The more important issues of how this happened and how to prevent cyber threats to future elections could be lost in this political back and forth.
Even apart from partisanship, congressional investigations tend to be unwieldy with too many principals involved, too much grandstanding, internal strife between competing agendas and factions, and constant leaks. Moreover, it is questionable whether congressional committees could muster the expertise to address the many highly technical aspects of these issues.
Ideally, the best approach would be to leave the investigations to executive branch intelligence and cyber security experts. The downside here, of course, is Trump. His absurd stance of denial and defensiveness on this entire subject makes it highly questionable whether he and his underlings in the incoming administration would permit executive branch professionals to conduct a free-wheeling and credible investigation.
President Obama has ordered a full review of the Russian hacking by the intelligence agencies, which is to be completed before he leaves office on January 20. This review may be the best chance for an objective assessment of Russian actions this year. There is at least a remote chance that this assessment could close the books on the 2016 election and clear the way for a truly nonpartisan and objective investigation of future cyber threats perhaps by an independent commission.