The Russian Connection: Will Congress Do Its Job?

It is a scandal that alleges the Trump campaign and transition team may have colluded with Russia over the American election, and then may have pledged the removal of new sanctions just imposed against Russia for tampering with our election. Yet House Republicans are content to act as accomplices by doing nothing.

Jason Chaffetz (R-Ut), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, issued 70 subpoenas in his investigation of Hillary Clinton's email — and issued them after the head of the FBI announced that no activity had reached the level of prosecutable malfeasance. Yet now that his own party is accused of secretly collaborating with the Russian government for reasons that need to be discovered, Chaffetz fends off any suggestion that his committee conduct oversight because with Gen. Mike Flynn's resignation, “The situation has taken care of itself”.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Ca) was on the Trump transition team. He thinks it is the leaks that should be investigated, rather than whatever dealings Flynn and other contacts had with the Russians. "General Flynn didn't break the law talking to the Russian ambassador", he said. "In fact, that's his job".

It wasn't his job or his right to do so during the transition, and it is extraordinary to hear a Congressman waive off an inconvenient law — the Logan Act that makes it a felony for a private citizen to conduct foreign policy for the United States. "Whoever recorded this, whoever recorded his phone call, unmasked it and leaked it, that's clearly multiple violations", is what he thinks should be investigated.

In fact, recording calls to or from U.S. phone numbers by the National Security Agency is legal if the other end of the call is outside the U.S. Embassies are the sovereign territory of the guest country; we speculate they are arguably considered outside the U.S. for surveillance purposes, and how Gen. Flynn's phone calls to the Russian ambassador, if at the embassy, could be viewed legally.

Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md) made plain how the Republicans operate with a different set of rules when they are in the cross hairs: "Do you hear the silence?", he asked. "This is the sound of House Republicans conducting no oversight of President Trump. Zero. That is what it sounds like when they abdicate their duty under the Constitution."

There is at least an ongoing investigation in the Senate Intelligence Committee over Russian hacking and manipulation of our elections, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to want to dig deeper, saying it’s highly likely that the Senate will investigate the Flynn affair, and that it should be folded into that committee's probes.

Democrats want an independent investigation, knowing full well that committee investigations operate far from view (were you aware the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating?) whereas a select committee or an independent inquiry in the mold of the 9/11 Commission operates in daylight. A critical point for Democrats is that Attorney General Sessions recuse himself, he having been so closely allied with Trump during his campaign. With the Republicans in control, none of what the Democrats want will go anywhere, of course, other than to make known how Republicans will be suppressing the uncovering of the Russian Connection if too little is done.

In the Senate, every committee has its own jurisdiction, but no committee has jurisdiction over all of this. That`s why select committees are formed, so that it can look at the CIA and the FBI and the military all in one setting.

But in the Senate, McConnell, who gets to decide, believes its intelligence committee will do a good enough job. He is as canny a politician as there ever was, and viewing the tumult and blunders of the Trump presidency, with thousands of candidates for jobs needing Senate approval not even proposed, might he like to see the committee do a very good job?

What do we mean? A select committee, and certainly an independent panel of the 9/11 Commission model, would take a long time to set up and get underway. One wonders if a reason McConnell prefers the committee already at work is that it could reach possibly irreparably damaging conclusions about the Trump presidency more quickly, and that could lead to impeachment if the high crimes and misdemeanors of collaborating with Russia in the U.S. elections are found, thereby removing this president sooner, before that much more damage is done. Hard to know what he is thinking.