Late last week, The Washington Post reported that the CIA had told a number of people that not only had the Russian government been behind the e-mail hacks from the Democratic National Committee later fenced to the general public by WikiLeaks, but also that the Russian government had done so with the specific purpose of helping to elect Donald Trump president of the United States. Moreover, according to the Post, prior to the election, there had been a meeting between the president, representatives of the intelligence community, and the leadership of both parties in the Congress about the situation and what should be done going forward. The immediate response from the Trump transition team was both lame and truthless. It took the staff at Camp Runamuck a couple of days to go really insane over the whole thing.

And it peaked—one hopes, anyway—on Monday afternoon when John Bolton, the nominee for Deputy Secretary of State For Paranoid Affairs, went on Fox News with his own speculation about what was going on. Follow the chemtrails, said Bolton.

"It's not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary's server but their dumb intelligence services against the election?"

Actually, the question that has to be asked is what exactly became of Bolton's keeper but, make no mistake, this already has gotten around among the faithful and, sooner or later, the "question" will be "open" enough for it to be discussed in the mainstream media. Carly Fiorina already has joined the chorus. Fox News' Jeannine Pirro already has explained that, to be a real American, you have to believe Vladimir Putin and not the intelligence services for which you paid. You have to give Bolton credit for one thing—it isn't easy to beat Alex Jones to a lunatic explanation of a news event, but Bolton managed to do it.

They are feeling the heat. The Republicans in the Congress, most notably in the Senate, are bestirring themselves on the subject. Lindsey Graham was out there first and, in a complete reversal of the national order of things, John McCain came after him. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that he would support an investigation into Russian ratfcking by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Per Tiger Beat On The Potomac:

"Obviously, any foreign breach of our cybersecurity measures is disturbing, and I strongly condemn any such efforts," McConnell told reporters at a news conference at the Capitol on Monday. "The Senate Intelligence Committee ... is more than capable of conducting a complete review of this matter."

This is better than nothing, but not much. First of all, McConnell himself is hopelessly compromised, and not just because the Post story shows that he was instrumental in burying the story until after the election, but also because his wife, Elaine Chao, has been nominated by the president-elect to be his Secretary of Transportation. The quid and the quo are dancing far too closely here for me to have much faith in a Senate committee that is beholden to McConnell. It has to be either a special committee or a special prosecutor. There's no third alternative.

Fox News

And, if it is either one of those, the investigation has to be completely open and transparent. There can be no evidence discovered that is not shared. If that gives the willies to the intelligence pros, that's just too damn bad. The elections are ours. They are the most essential part of the political commons. We have an absolute right to know how and to what extent they were monkeywrenched by a foreign despot on behalf of a domestic despot. And it can't be another extended exercise in the passive voice of the Wise Men—"Mistakes were made"—as was the Tower Commission that probed Iran-Contra. And it also can't be a special committee as was the special committee looking into Iran-Contra, which got played like a fifty-cent violin by Oliver North. It has to be aggressive and it has to be open. Is it too late to clone Sam Ervin or Ferdinand Pecora?

(Just for the record, it doesn't matter whether or not Hillary Rodham Clinton would have won without the Russian ratfcking or not. The very existence of the ratfcking is the whole point. And, if you're going to descend from your ivory towers and start talking about American meddling overseas, if you can find me an Iranian, a Chilean, or a Guatemalan who hacked this election, you might have a case. But a Russian oligarch as the vehicle for some sort of karmic justice? Please.)

And it has to start soon because El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago has begun to lose it again, and his spokesbots, especially RNC mouthpiece Sean Spicer, have been reduced to raving bafflegab. This will only get worse because the Clinton camp and the White House both weighed in heavily on the side of the investigation on Monday. This likely will set off the president-elect again. Properly run, investigative committees can be great vehicles for clarity. The available evidence is that the incoming administration treats clarity the way vampires treat daylight.

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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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