When partisan politics trumps national security

Even when the United States is under attack by a foreign power, our nation’s elected leaders are so obsessed with gaining political advantage that protecting our country becomes a secondary priority.

That was the obvious on Monday when Republican congressmen on the House Intelligence Committee seemed more interested in putting newspaper reporters in prison than uncovering evidence that Russia undermined the 2016 presidential election.

FBI director James Comey and National Security Agency director Admiral Michael Rogers Richards eventually would make it clear that Russia engaged in a campaign to influence the election outcome and that its president, Vladimir Putin, hated Hillary Clinton.

Yet, over and over again, Republican congressmen such as Trey Gowdy of South Carolina pressed Comey to track down those who leaked information to newspaper reporters that key people in the Trump camp were talking with Russians during the presidential election.

Republicans spat out the words “anonymous sources” with a disdain once reserved for “communists.”

In their view, the news media is the enemy, not the foreign nation out to destroy our democracy.

Republicans could hardly bring themselves to say a bad word about Putin, the guy responsible not only for undermining confidence in our elections, but the hacking of U.S. corporations and financial institutions.

The partisan behavior of Democrats on the House intelligence panel was initially just as bad.

Their focus was the fact that President Donald Trump had lied when he tweeted that his campaign headquarters at Trump Tower had been wiretapped by Barack Obama.

I doubt anyone ever believed that accusation, but the FBI had been made to waste its time investigating the allegation because the president had demanded it and Democrats saw an opportunity to prove that Trump cannot be trusted.

I’m guessing the FBI and NSA directors have more important things to do than investigate the lies and exaggerations of American politicians, but in our current political climate personal fantasy has replaced reality.

I don’t think any Americans need an FBI investigation or a congressional hearing to convince them their elected officials rarely tell the truth.

In fact, Trump uses such public skepticism to his advantage. No matter how big a whopper he tells, the people who support him respond, “That’s no different than Obama, Bush or Clinton.”

Hey, I understand that Democrats despise Republicans and Republicans loathe Democrats and everyone is willing to use race, religion or sex to divide the country for political gain.

But until Monday I didn’t fully realize that partisan politics had trumped even national security.

Folks, Russian invaded Ukraine. Its air force bombed civilians in Syria to bolster the regime of a dictator to gain a power hold in the Middle East. The Russians are behind intelligence operations in Eastern Europe to influence elections and destabilize democracies there.

Those are facts.

But Democrats claim victory this week because they got the FBI director and NSA director to say they could find no information to support Trump’s claim that his campaign headquarters were bugged.

Democrats spent a lot of time during Monday’s hearing mentioning the names of Trump operatives who have had, could have had, or may someday have meetings with Russians or people with Russian names.

Joe McCarthy would have been proud.

As for Republicans, they no longer care about free elections, free speech or a free press. They wanted to make it clear that the Russians had not actually tampered with ballots, even if their intelligence operation had influence the election outcome.

It was revealed that the FBI is investigating the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and its connection to the Russians. Of course, Trump has compared that agency to the Nazis and called the news media the true enemy of this country.

We may as well stamp “In Putin We Trust” on our nation’s currency. He seems to have more credibility these days than our own government.

Email: philkadner@gmail.com

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com

Tweets by @csteditorials