The Daily Beast's scoop that Guccifer 2.0 was "in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU)" means that if the reporting is accurate, House Speaker Paul Ryan's Super PAC and the House GOP’s campaign committee used information supplied by a Russian intelligence officer to defeat Democrats in the 2016 campaign cycle.

The fact that Ryan's Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) made use of materials hacked by Russian operatives as part of Russia's influence operation isn't new. And the links between Guccifer 2.0 and Republican operatives has been well established.

But now we know that influence campaign likely has a direct link back to Russia's main intelligence agency and Vladimir Putin himself. That adds another layer to the fact that Ryan and the GOP campaign committee always knew they were using Russian harvested materials and they did so shamelessly. As the New York Times reported in December 2016: