Before we get to the first day of testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding possible Russian ratfcking of the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of the Trump campaign, we should note that events are moving apace elsewhere in Washington, too, and that House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes seems to be getting hung out to dry in the process. From The New York Times:

Several current American officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel's Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.

So, now there's something of a through-line, even though it's one that winds itself in a complete circle back to the White House again. Nunes gets the leak from these guys. He gives his very strange press conference. And then he goes back to the White House like Napoleon Solo and tells the people who worked there the story he'd learned from two other people who worked there. The way things are going, he's going to wind up questioning himself.

Meanwhile, down at the other end of The Avenue, the Senate committee heard from several witnesses, including this Clinton Watts cat. He's a Fellow in cyber-security at George Washington University and a very plain-spoken fellow. Watts told the committee there were two ways to follow the trail leading back to Russia from the election just passed.

"You can hack stuff and be covert, but you can't influence and be covert. You have to ultimately show your hand. And that's why we have been able to discover it online."

Or?

"Follow the trail of dead Russians. There have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation. They are dropping dead, even in Western countries."

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Well, all right, then. Watts then went even beyond that when asked by James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, why Vladimir Putin's efforts in this area seem to have been more effective than they have been in previous years. Watts replied:

"I think this answer is very simple and is what no one is really saying in this room. The reason active measures have worked in this US election is because the commander-in-chief has used Russian active measures at times against his opponents."

In case anyone missed his point—which was the gobsmacker of a charge that the current president* was elected in part because of Russian ratfcking, and because of his own inherent gifts as a gaslighting ratfcker—Watts explained further, according to The Independent:

Mr Watts, an advisor at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Programme, cited several examples of when Mr Trump had referenced false new stories about terror attacks that had in fact never taken place. "He has made claims about voter fraud, that President Obama is not a citizen, that Congressman [Ted] Cruz is not a citizen," he added. "So part of the reason these active measures work, and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being wiretapped, is because they [the Trump team] parrot the same lines."

Later, Watts talked about how the Russian cybernauts have been known to plant false or incriminating information on the people they wanted to ratfck, although he also said this has been happening mostly in Europe, which I guess should be reassuring, but which really isn't.

All right, even if you accept for a moment that Watts was being somewhat melodramatic here, it's clear that, in the minds of the members of this committee, the Russians mucked with the election and that their mucking with the election redounded to the credit of the Trump campaign.

To leave it there is to believe to the point of fanaticism the power of coincidence, which was the gist of what Watts was saying beneath all the vague dread. And this was only the first day. That great, grinding machine I heard slipping into gear on Wednesday is getting louder.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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