John Heilemann has had an epiphany, and it's about time. He's been raising the alarm for more than a week, saying that Republicans are compromised and working as agents of Russia.
Last night on MSNBC, he said it again.
"I've said this now multiple times this week and I'll say it again," he told Nicolle Wallace about the administration's determination to release the Nunes memo.
"It has clarified the extent to which Paul Ryan is now no longer on Team USA, or on even Team Old Republican Party. He is on Team Nunes, which means he's on Team Trump, which means to some extent they're all -- they're advancing, in some sense, Russia. This is -- this is what Russia wants here.
"And I continue to be baffled by Ryan's behavior. But we now have a clear signal that Ryan is utterly supine and he's backed Nunes, he's saying to the extent that Nunes is saying we don't care about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, what we're going to do is investigate the FBI, which is what Nunes is saying. Ryan has come out and endorsed that view. And I find that utterly stunning," he said.
"Paul Ryan has behaved poorly over the course of the last year, but this -- I did not think he would end up in this position. He is and he is there. It has huge implications for the future, too."
So, so close, and yet not quite there. Remember this story, John?
And these:
How Putin's Proxies Helped Funnel Millions Into GOP Campaigns
Manafort Notes From Russian Meet Refer to Political Contributions
The Kremlin Defense Fund: Russian money might have gone to Trump’s legal fees
After the shite hits the fan and the dust finally settles, we may very well find that top Republicans went along because a combination of Russian hacking and Cambridge Analytica didn't just deliver the White House to the Republicans -- they gave them control of both houses.
Connect those dots, John.
