So Trump is off the golf course now, where he spent the morning working off some of the rage that fueled his bizarre weekend of garbled tweets. But not all of that anger was left on the green. You can see he came off the links still stewing about Russia, Russia, Russia.
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Obama was President up to, and beyond, the 2016 Election. So why didn’t he do something about Russian meddling?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2018
About that. Let’s go back to September 2016, when President Obama went to congressional leadership asking for a “show of solidarity and bipartisan unity” in publicly condemning Russia for interference. Remember what happened?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to sign on. He blocked that condemnation of Russia. The White House wasn’t willing to push that, according to Vice President Joe Biden, because it was clear Republicans—McConnell leading the charge—would just double-down on Trump’s “rigged” rhetoric. “What do you think would have happened? Would things have gotten better, or would it further look like we were trying to delegitimize the electoral process, because of our opponent?” And that would just play in to Russia’s hand in further delegitimizing the process.
And after the election, Obama did do something. He expelled 35 Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russia, but of course that had to happen after the election and when concrete intelligence demonstrated the scope of Russia’s intervention. Those sanctions, by the way, weren’t only supported by Congress, but more than 500 representatives and senators voted to maintain and strengthen them. Those would be the sanctions Trump is now refusing to impose.