Seriously, What Do Republicans Think We Should Have Done?

Republicans seem unanimously of the view that the Deep State definitely should not have opened a counter-intelligence investigation of Trump and Russia during the election.  They point out (correctly) that investigating a candidate for office, especially for Presidency, is an extremely sensitive topic, and that there have been serious abuses in that regard, culminating with the Watergate break-in.

But pointing out that investigation of a political opponent is a sensitive topic is one thing.  Concluding that it should therefore never be done no matter what the evidence is quite another.

And consider the evidence the Intelligence Community was looking at.  (Here let us grant (1) a lot of things are public knowledge now that the Intelligence Community did not know at the time and (2) the Intelligence Community knew (and knows) a lot that is still not public knowledge.  But let's go by what we know they knew).

They knew the Russians had hacked the DNC server and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager.  At a minimum, they knew this because the FBI and two cyber security firms examined the hack and traced it back to Russian intelligence.  And to judge from the degree of detail in the Mueller indictment, there may have been other sources as well.

They knew that Wikileaks, an organization at least suspected of ties to Russia, was releasing the hacked material in a manner calculated to cause maximum damage.  The Mueller indictment  (paragraph 47) identifies the precise e-mail in which the Russians conveyed this information to Wikileaks. 

They apparently had a source inside the Kremlin that confirmed that Vladimir Putin was directly behind the hack.  (And, I recall but have not found a link, that the purpose was to sway the election for Trump).

They knew Trump was a Putin cheerleader.  Trump ran an openly pro-Russia campaign and, despite seemingly having no concept of a mutually beneficial relationship, somehow managed to make an exception for Russia.  He regularly quoted talking points from Russian propaganda sources.

They knew the Trump campaign had members with suspicious Russia ties.  Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser, had extensive business ties to Russia, strongly pro-Russian views, and had once been targeted for recruitment as a Russian spy.  During the campaign he traveled to Moscow and made a pro-Russia public speech.  Paul Manafort, who served several months as campaign director, was an adviser and propagandist for the pro-Russian party in Ukraine.  Michael Flynn, a major foreign policy adviser who Trump even considered for Vice President, was a semi-regular commentator for Russia Today  who did a photo op with Putin.

They knew that Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos drunkenly boasted about being approached by Russian assets who offered him "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of e-mails.

Finally, and most controversially, there are unconfirmed reports that allied intelligence agencies, in the course of routine surveillance of Russian communications, kept picking up suspicious contacts with the Trump team:

It is understood that GCHQ [Government Central Headquarters, the British intelligence] was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.

To the best of my knowledge, mainstream Republicans do not dispute most of these points.  The Russian hack and release to Wikileaks are disputed by some in the crazy conspiracy fringe, but not the mainstream.  Trump's pro-Russian stance and advisers with Russian ties are matters of public record beyond dispute.  And Papadopoulos appears to have admitted to his drunken boast.

That leaves the purported spy in the Kremlin and the reports from allied intelligence of contacts between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.  These are more nebulous matters, highly secret information that necessarily cannot be disclosed and therefore is easy to dispute and hard to confirm. 

Even so, we have the Russian government hacking into the e-mails of one party and campaign chair and arranging the release of the materials in a manner calculated to do maximum harm.  And we have the other candidate showing a general hostility to all other countries except Russia and running a team with at least three members who had extraordinary Russia ties.  And a member (admittedly not high level) who was contacted by Russian agents and offered "dirt" on the other candidate.

Granted, all of these things could have been unrelated.  On the other hand, there is that alarming but real possibility that they might be related.  And wouldn't one want the Intelligence Community to find out whether these things were related or not?  To which Republicans answer no, Trump was running for President, so any investigation was simply too politically sensitive to be done.

So, if their view is to be taken seriously, running for President should be taken as an immunity, not only from prosecution, but even from investigation.  Except for the obvious.  Republicans did not extend any such immunity to Hillary Clinton.  Quite the contrary, the Republican (or at least Trumpite) consensus on Hillary was that she should not only be investigated, but that any investigation that did not terminate in prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment was obviously rigged in her favor.

Admittedly, once can reconcile these two views.  Incumbent Presidents can hardly be suspected of abusing their power investigating their preferred successor, so investigation of a candidate of the President's party is fine.*  But an opposing candidate is above the law, and the Deep State must turn a blind eye to any developments, no matter how alarming.  Or, as this article comments:

Trump’s position, and the consensus position of the conservative movement, is that, having become aware of a foreign intelligence service’s successful efforts to infiltrate a major party presidential campaign, the FBI should have done nothing about it, because the campaign in question happened to be a Republican one.

And if that is your view, it raises serious questions about how far this principle should go.  If candidate Trump shot someone in front of Washington Monument** should that, too, go uninvestigated? 

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*Presumably this would not apply to a primary opponent.

**If he had committed murder in the middle of Fifth Avenue, it would have been a matter under New York law, so the feds would not have been involved.