Trump Is Hiding Information From Democrats Instead Of From Russia

By Aliza Worthington — February 21, 2020

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance joined Nicolle Wallace's panel on Deadline White House today to discuss the new reporting that shocked no one: Russia is still interfering in our election process, again with the intention of helping Trump get re-elected. Also shocking to no one, Trump is outraged, though he's not even trying to hide the fact that he wants the help now.

Wallace asked Vance what we are even debating, at this point? That Russia is up to their old tricks, those rascals? Vance's answer highlighted the new depths of destruction Trump and Russia have achieved against the sanctity of our election security.

VANCE: You know, I think what we're doing is that we're looking backwards through this filter of more knowledge that we had when the Mueller investigation was underway. And so, the most frightening thing, Nicolle, is that the president continues to view this as an attack on him personally. And his response, instead of circling the wagons around the elections, and figuring out ways to keep Russia out of the election, is he's trying to figure out ways to keep DEMOCRATS from getting information about what's going on. Bob Mueller identified criminal conduct, and he indicted people in Russian troll farms for trying to impact our elections. That's one way our government addresses these situations.

But now, Trump is going after the most foundational way we protect our election security from foreign attack. That's through the Intelligence Community. People who need to have the latitude to do this work, when they are briefing people on the Hill to speak the truth, and to think through the implications of that. That's what Trump is trying to shut down, and that should frighten all of us today.

He's not trying to keep Russians from interfering. He's trying to keep Democrats from finding out about the interference, because he WANTS it. He NEEDS it. And he has realized the only way to keep Democrats in the dark is to keep our Intelligence Community from doing its job freely, which is why he has, as John Brennan said, decapitated the ODNI by firing the top career officials running it.

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