President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of not taking action against Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election, suggesting that they were trying to help Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “Well I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it,” Trump said. “But nobody wants to talk about that.” Questioning Obama’s inaction, Trump said, “Obama didn’t do enough to address the situation.”
Robert Reich reacts:
Accusations are mounting that instead of protecting America from Putin's future cyber-attacks on our elections -- such as occurred last fall when Putin helped Trump get elected -- Trump is doing everything he can to obstruct such defenses.
But to deflect such criticism, Trump is now attacking Obama for failing to defend America against Putin’s 2016 cyber-attack that helped Trump get elected.
"Well I just heard today for the first time that Obama knew about Russia a long time before the election, and he did nothing about it," Trump said in an interview yesterday. “If he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? He should have done something about it. But you don't read that. It's quite sad."
Last night, Trump tweeted: “Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?”
This is hypocritical nonsense.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that after the CIA concluded Putin had been directly involved, the Obama administration debated options for deterring or punishing Russia -- and issued several warnings to Moscow about its activities, including one delivered by Obama to Putin in September. But Obama didn't want to push Putin too hard or go public for fear of appearing to side with Hillary Clinton in the election.
Trump can't hide the fact he got elected with the direct help of Vladimir Putin -- the man he has continuously courted and complimented. And he refuses to take action to prevent Putin from helping Trump again. That's the real scandal.
By Eugene Scott
