Heather Cox Richardson - February 20, 2020 - Letters From An American

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

"SNIP.....

So where does this leave us? The person now in charge of our national intelligence has no experience in intelligence, and is supported by one of Devin Nunes’s staffers who has worked to discredit the intelligence community. The new DNI is a fervent supporter of the president, who insists—all evidence to the contrary—that Russia is not, and has not, interfered in our elections to put him in office.

This is not good.

It seems to me simple: if Republicans do not actively want Russia to interfere in the 2020 election, why do they simply keep trying to discredit our intelligence officers? Why don’t they say, “Okay, we don’t think this is happening, but we want to reassure everyone about the safety of our elections, so we’ll do everything possible to protect them?”

And yet they are not. Just this month, Senate Republicans blocked three election security bills that would explicitly require campaigns to alert the FBI and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about foreign offers to help (such offers are already against election finance law), and that would ban voting machines from linking to the internet. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who blocked the bills, objected to them because she said they would take power from the states and give it to federal bureaucrats. At the same time, Trump has refused to make appointments to the FEC so it no longer has a quorum and cannot even meet, let alone protect our elections.

......SNIP"