Intelligence Committee Senators Call On Obama To Declassify Evidence Of Russian Election Interference

Say That Again

from the that-would-be-interesting dept

We’ve been a lot more skeptical than most about all the claims of “Russian interference” with the US Presidential election this year. While I don’t doubt there was some effort to do something, Russia is such an easy scapegoat. Still, plenty of people insist that it’s true, including those who at least should have a fair bit of insight into what actually happened. To me, the bigger issue is that attribution in many of these things is a lot more difficult than most people make it out to be.

Either way, it’s quite noteworthy that seven Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee have asked President Obama to declassify the evidence pointing to Russia and detailing what Russia actually did to attempt to interfere with the election. The Senators sent a very simple letter, which was released publicly, noting that a classified letter with a lot more details was also sent. Here’s the entire text of the publicly released letter:

Dear Mr. President:

We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Of course, it needs to be noted that this will clearly be seen as a partisan effort. Of the seven Senators who signed on to the letter, six are Democrats, and the other, Senator Angus King, is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Basically it’s all of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee except for Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid. So, it’s easy for some to spin this as a case of sour grapes about the Democrats not winning the election, and that they’re now clinging to stories of Russian interference to explain what happened.

But… that spin holds somewhat less weight when you look at the details. First off, the letter itself was put together by Senator Ron Wyden. And, yes, his name comes up a lot around here, but that’s because he has a pretty long history of being right on lots and lots of stuff. And that’s been especially true when Wyden says that there’s some secret info that the public deserves to know about. He’s been right on that every single time he’s said it. So the track record is there. When Wyden says the public deserves to know something, pay attention.

The second thing that provides more confidence here is that this isn’t just random conspiracy theories about “rigged” voting or whatever that some have been spewing. This is a specific request for more transparency by asking for specific information to be released to the public — specific information that the Senate Intelligence Committee members have seen.

Given that, it seems worth paying attention to — and at least asking why the President won’t declassify such information? If there really is such strong evidence, why not reveal it? So far, all of the evidence pointing to Russia has been fairly weak, and it feels a bit like groupthink that everyone just insists it’s true. But it’s entirely possible (and perhaps now, probable) that the intelligence community has some more serious evidence. And, if that’s the case, it seems worth sharing with the public even if you were happy with the outcome of the election. If Russia really did “interfere” somehow in the election, the public deserves to know the details of it.

Filed Under: declassify, election, hacking, interference, ron wyden, russia