The Trumpettes Are Suspiciously Unconcerned About Russian Hacking

Philip Bump comments on what might be the most suspicious thing Sessions said yesterday:

In his testimony, Sessions told Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) that he “did not recall” any meeting during which Trump expressed concern or curiosity about what Russia had been doing during the 2016 election. Sessions also testified that he himself, as the country’s and Trump’s lead law enforcement official, was never briefed on Russian interference.

Even if nothing else Sessions said on Tuesday had comported with what former FBI director James B. Comey said before the same committee last week, this did. Manchin asked Comey whether Trump had ever expressed curiosity about Russia’s attempts to swing the election; Comey said that he “[didn’t] remember any conversations with the president about the Russia election interference.”

Both before and after his election and inauguration, Trump’s attitude toward the Russia investigation has almost exclusively been that it’s a hassle, not an important step toward assuring the sanctity of American elections. (A sanctity, mind you, that has been his purported focus in establishing a commission to look at alleged voter fraud.) Instead, he has consistently disputed whether Russia was even behind the hacking — a line that Sessions mirrored in his testimony on Tuesday by stating that Russia’s role was the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies without embracing it as his own.

Here’s Trump’s most recent comment:

Of course, Trump is downplaying anything that might question the legitimacy of his election. This suggests that somewhere in his addled brain he knows Russians were trying to help him win the election.

And, of course, this tells us he is less concerned about the security of the United States than he is in protecting his own sorry ass.