Rep. Chris Stewart from Utah told CNN that after visiting Russia last August, he was certain they were going to "mess with our elections."
Rep. Stewart defended the Trump administration for most of his interview with CNN New Day co-host Chris Cuomo, as they debated the merits of the Russian investigations, Trump and Bob Mueller, but at the end admitted the Russians did a much better job of hacking and interference then they even thought they would and he wasn't they only one who thought so.
The Utah Congressman responded to Cuomo's question about Russian interference and was looking to blame the Obama administration for allowing this to happen, but after visiting Russia before the election came away alerted to their plans.
Stewart said, "I went to Moscow last August, and I came home and said they’re gonna mess with our elections. We just knew that they were and it wasn't just me saying that."
Rep. Stewart continued, "The Russian KGB case officer who is responsible for this, he's probably been promoted from captain to four star general because this went way beyond their wildest dreams of success I think..."
(The KGB is no longer, it was succeeded by the FSB, but I imagine most Americans are familiar with the KGB term.)
There haven't been many Republican members in Congress willing to give the American people this amount of certainty to what the Russians actually did to the U.S. 2016 general election.
He continued, "By the way, they'll be able to do it again and they certainly plan on doing this again in the United States, in France, Germany, other western democracies. I think we have to look at these questions and say 'how do we counter that?,' because it's not healthy for us Americans when we feel like a foreign entity, especially an adversary like Russia, maybe had an enormous influence on our election."
He threw in the "maybe" to give the GOP an out, but he knows what happened.
It's too bad Trump doesn't consider Russia much of an adversary.