There's a lot to parse in the statements issued Monday by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, regarding the Russia investigation. But one kernel stuck out at me as illustrating once again one of the basic problems of the Trump administration's approach to this unfolding and ongoing scandal.

"Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," Kushner told reporters outside the White House after speaking to congressional investigators. "Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him."

But while the question of whether Russia's 2016 cyberassault upon our political system actually swung votes is interesting and important – and will serve as what-if fodder for political scientists, strategists and pundits for generations to come – it is also, in a very important sense, beside the point.

Here's the main point that Kushner (and Trump and everyone else who peddles this bait-and-switch argument) misses: A foreign adversary launched a broad and well-resourced campaign against our political system last year; this should be a matter of bipartisan concern and outrage. Period.

The extent to which that attack achieved its aims – and electing Trump was indeed one of its ultimate (if not initial) objectives, at least in the view of the U.S. intelligence community – is a legitimate area of both inquiry and debate.

Cartoons on President Trump and Russia View All 91 Images

But even if one takes Team Trump at its current word (and there have been several, each evolving as more facts have dripped out), the Russia attack is a big, big deal. In other words, even if one buys that there was no meaningful collusion or cooperation with Russia (not for lack of interest!) and that Russia didn't have any effect at all on one of the closest, most unlikely elections in U.S. history, the mere fact that a hostile power tried to disrupt our political system merits a strong national response. That's not "fake news," and it's not a "witch hunt." It's fact.

Look at it this way: If Russian President Vladimir Putin had dropped a bomb on American soil last fall, that it proved to be a dud and didn't go off, or went off but didn't actually kill anyone, wouldn't be sufficient grounds to let the whole thing slide and neither investigate nor respond.

And of course neither Trump nor anyone associated with him has any credibility on the issue. There's no reason in the world to take them at their word. That's not to say that they're guilty of collusion or cooperation or anything nefarious but it does mean that their protestations of innocence needn't give anyone the least pause in investigating the matter.

But Trump and his team have turned the Russia scandal into something of a cult-of-personality-style, personal partisan litmus test: If you think that Russia is a legitimate issue then you're against Trump; and if you're with him, you must dismiss and diminish the attacks.

Why? The simple answer is that Trump is so self-absorbed and sensitive about the loophole, glitch nature of his victory that he cannot brook any fact (whether that of Russian interference or that he lost the popular vote by a wide margin) which calls it back to mind. So, in this version, President Snowflake is willing to endanger U.S. national security because his feelings are hurt. This is about as strong a defense as Kushner's, that he's in over his head, as The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin noted Monday. (In fairness, this last excuse is actually a pretty standard GOP talking point these days.)