U.S. intelligence agencies and even members of Russian intelligence agencies say Russia made significant attempts to sway the U.S. 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. This is a major international scandal that some have called cyber warfare. However, the media attention and national outrage over this wrongdoing seems to have waned.
Just a brief recap of key events is troubling: Democratic and Republican National Committee emails were hacked, but only Democratic Committee emails were released by Russian agents through WikiLeaks; one of candidate Trump’s close advisors and campaign chair, Paul Manafort, had to be dismissed because of troubling Russian connections; newly confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had such close ties to Russia (largely based on Exxon Mobil’s investments there) that he won the Order of Friendship award from the Russian government; reports attributed to a former British counterintelligence officer alleged there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Even more troubling is our president’s unwillingness to say anything negative about Vladimir Putin, even going so far recently as to say Putin’s practice of having his political enemies killed was not so different that what the U.S. government does.
I call on our Congressional delegation, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young, to support the appointment of a bipartisan committee or an independent commission to investigate the involvement of Russia in our 2016 presidential election and current foreign policy.
Linda Schandelmeier
Fairbanks
