Ron Johnson - a track record of covering up for Trump and the Russians

Last night's resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is alarming enough, given that it is pretty evident that Flynn was dealing with the Russian government and forming policy with them before President Trump took office, and because it opens up a number of questions as to how deeply Flynn or other members of this administration are compromised (if not flat-out OWNED) by Vladimir Putin and company. In addition, if you think Flynn did all this on his own without someone knowing about and/or signing off on these meetings and promises with the Russians, you are a FOOL.

But apparently our esteemed US Senator didn't care about those national security concerns. Instead Ron Johnson reacted by whining about the fact that Flynn's compromising positions ever became public.

The resignation of Michael Flynn as President Donald Trump's national security adviser shows the challenges that the president faces in dealing with a bureaucracy that does not support his agenda, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Tuesday.

"That's something that this president is going to have to come to grips with," Johnson said during an appearance on Fox News.

He said that leaks to the press about Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office were troublesome. "Leaks of this nature are incredibly damaging to the United States," Johnson said. He stopped short of saying they were illegal.

"You've got an agency that's not supportive, loyal to the president of the United States," he said, also expressing concern about staffers within the State Department who are "hostile" to Trump's agenda.

I found Johnson's response sickening, and not just because of he seemed to value loyalty to Donald freaking Trump over loyalty to the Constitution and the independence of the United States. But also because I remembered an article from January by Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee. Murphy connected the dots, and showed that Johnson lied to the Wisconsin people before the 2016 elections about what he knew regarding Russian propaganda, and their attempts to manipulate our elections.

The details of the mid-September meeting are in a story by the Washington Post, which reported that President Barack Obama had dispatched his counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, FBI Director James B. Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson “to make the pitch for a ‘show of solidarity and bipartisan unity’ against Russian interference in the election,” as a senior administration official told the Post.

As chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Johnson was one the so-called “Gang of 12,” the top 12 congressional leaders, who were invited to the meeting. (House Speaker Paul Ryan also attended the meeting.) Johnson later confirmed to Politico that he participated in the briefing...

Worse, he has engaged in his own pattern of misinformation on the subject. After the CIA publicly released a report in January concluding that Russia meddled in the presidential election to help Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election, Johnson issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal saying he would “would need more definitive information before drawing further conclusions.” Johnson did not reveal that he had been informed back in September this was happening.

Johnson went on to complain to CNBC that the CIA refused to brief him on Russian hacking, saying “I have not seen the evidence that it actually was Russia,” while failing to note the CIA report’s echoed the briefing he’d received from other intelligence leaders in September.

Johnson also complained that Obama had failed to confront the Russia government with strength, even though the Obama administration had proposed a strong stand on cyber hacking which Johnson declined to join.

Think they sent valentines to each other today?

If there is a member of Congress who should know as well as anyone what is going on with the Russians and their attempts to influence US policy, it is Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson. And yet, not only is Johnson not calling for a federal investigation to get to the bottom of what is going on, and to either remove the conflicts or restore confidence in Donald Trump's presidential debate claim that he's "not a puppet" of Putin, (mo)Ron is whining about the leakers that got the truth out to the public. Much like how Mitch McConnell notoriously convinced the Obama Administration not to go public in September with what they knew about Russian interference, because McConnell claimed that he would scream Obama was "playing politics" before the election.

The correct term for this act is COVER-UP, and if Ron Johnson thinks the 6-year term that he lied and deceived his way into last November makes him immune from consequence in his complicity in this disgrace, let's make him sadly mistaken.

Fuck this guy, and fuck anyone who voted for this amoral scumbucket on November 8.