Republican Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), one of eight GOP lawmakers who spent the Fourth of July in Russia, now is downplaying the significance of Russian election interference and suggesting Congress went too far by mandating the Trump administration implement sanctions.
“I’ve been pretty upfront that the election interference — as serious as that was, and unacceptable — is not the greatest threat to our democracy,” Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview with the Washington Examiner published over the weekend. “We’ve blown it way out of proportion.”
“We need to really honestly assess what actually happened, what effect did it have, and what effect are our sanctions actually having, positively and negatively,” the Republican from Wisconsin said.
(...)
[Johnson] has said that the Senate may have gone too far with mandatory sanctions against a host of Russian entities, leaving Trump with too little negotiating room on other matters. He also said the sanctions did not appear to be working as intended.
The findings of Intelligence Community Assessment, issued January 2017 and reaffirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee just last week, are unambiguous about the role Vladimir Putin played in ordering an influence campaign intended to destabilize democracy.
Johnson said that during the trip, the Republican lawmakers decried the release of emails stolen from Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. The Russians denied the charges, and then accused the Americans of interfering in Russian politics and elections in neighboring countries.
“We would bring it up, and they would push back with all the ways we interfere with their politics in terms of funding of NGOs, and Radio Free Europe and Voice of America," Johnson said. "We pushed back hard. I think they're certainly on notice that there should be no meddling in 2018.”
Whataboutism is a popular Russian distraction tactic with Soviet origins.
Russian state media already is making good use of Senator Johnson's Saturday remarks, conveying a position he repeated again Monday.
Johnson’s remarks to the Examiner were highlighted by Russian state media.
The Russian news agency TASS reported on Johnson’s comments, as did Sputnik International.
(...)
Johnson elaborated on his position in a Monday interview with WOSH-AM radio, in which he said there were more serious threats.
“We’ve had briefings on this — it’s very difficult to really meddle in our elections. It just is. These are locally run, it’s almost impossible to change the vote tally. My concern would be violating the voter files, but we have those issues anyway and there are plenty of controls on that,” he said. “You know from a standpoint of using social media we spent a couple of billion dollars on the last election, they maybe spent a couple hundred thousand.”
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), who also traveled to Russia, says he delivered a much tougher message and came back with a different perspective.
CNN:
Speaking on CNN's "At This Hour with Kate Bolduan," Kennedy said he warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Congress will "double down on sanctions ... if you screw with the elections this fall."
This was despite Lavrov's denial of any Russian interference with elections, which Kennedy "expected."
Even though Kennedy thought Lavrov to be a "bully" and "belligerent," the senator thought his message "was delivered."
"I went (to Russia) to ... deliver a message ... to the foreign minister, to the speaker of the house, and to a number of their senators," he said.
The message was "stop screwing with American elections ... get out of eastern Ukraine and let them self-determine ... get out of Crimea and let Crimea self-determine ... stop screwing around in Syria and help us settle the mess. And ... do not allow Iran to get a foothold in southern Syria, because if you do that, there's going to be another war that Israel's not going to stand for."
Meeting with Russian government officials also helped inform Kennedy's perception of the political system there.
"People ask, 'what sort of political system do they have?' It's all about Putin. They don't have a political philosophy. I mean, what's the political philosophy of the mafia?" he said.
"The last time the Russian government embraced Western values and democracy was never," Kennedy said. "We're not going to convert their political leadership. We're going to have to contain them."
GOP senator open to revising Russia sanctions after Moscow trip (Washington Examiner)
After Moscow Trip, Ron Johnson Says Election Meddling Overblown (Roll Call)
John Kennedy to Russian government officials: 'Stop screwing with American elections' (CNN)