This might feel a bit like schadenfreude for the Clinton campaign and DNC after being hacked throughout 2016.
Republican House leadership is worried now about what other leaks could come next.
After the Washington Post reported on a taped conversation with GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy telling Speaker Ryan (R-WI) and others that he thought Russian President Putin was paying Trump and Republican lawmaker Dana Rohrabacher, House leadership is “agitated” Axios reports.
It came out on Friday that the FBI warned Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) years ago that Russian spies were trying to recruit him.
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Referring to the possibility that other private conversations might have been recorded, one senior Republican aide said according to Jonathan Swan, “The unknown is frustrating.”
House leadership is frantically trying to figure out where the leak came from. One of their theories is Republican Evan McMullin, who ran for president as an independent in 2016. But they don’t have evidence that it was him.
“Evidence or not, leadership sources are privately worried that McMullin had a tape on while he sat silently through all of their confidential meetings. They’re concerned about what leaks could come next.”
Last summer Republicans were glorying in the hackings of the DNC and the constant negative gossip those hacks generated for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Republicans have shown no concern about the fact that those hacks came from the Russians, nor any impetus to investigate that interference and the subsequent and ongoing attack on the U.S.
Suddenly the shoe is on the other foot, but this time it’s not hacking by a foreign aggressor. It’s a leaker, someone who seems to be trying to get the Republicans to do the right thing by their country. There is no doubt more where that tape came from, but Republicans will spend their time trying to track down the leak instead of dealing with the Russian flag they’re clutching.
If Republicans put America first, they would have a select committee and would not settle for anything less.
It is entirely possible and actually right to have independent Congressional investigations at the same time as the FBI is doing its probe. They have different scopes and oversight responsibilities.
This is unlikely to happen, as Greg Sargent pointed out today, when he wrote that an independent counsel would shut down Congressional inquiries “only if Republicans want it to”. And want it to they do.
Republicans are following President Trump’s lead by focusing on the leakers damaging their reputations instead of the attack on the country the leakers are trying to stop. The leakers wouldn’t be leaking anything if Republicans would do their jobs and live up to their oath of office.
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