It’s not a matter of allowing it to happen, it’s a matter of not giving a ■■■■ about it happening until it provided them an excuse to “resist” the incoming administration. Had Clinton won, this whole Russian issue would have been a footnote.
On the CIA briefing intelligence committee members of the House and Senate before the election
In that meeting, which takes place in September, finally, by then the CIA is convinced that the … Russians are interfering in the election and not just playing to create chaos, which was the first theory, and to kind of undermine the idea of democracy. … But the CIA becomes convinced by the very end of the summer that the Russians are actually trying to help Trump, which is what Steele has been saying all the way along.
So the CIA then briefs the top leadership in Congress in both the House and the Senate and the intelligence committee members of this, and Obama is hoping that he can get these leaders on both the Republican side and the Democratic side to sign some kind of statement denouncing it and telling the public about it and warning everybody, all the election officials in all the states that are going to deal with the upcoming presidential election. But the Republicans, particularly Mitch McConnell, refuse to sign on to a bipartisan statement and [McConnell] won’t sign anything that specifically mentions the Russians. He says he doesn’t believe it and he just won’t do it.
This is a real problem for Obama, because he had been wanting to have a bipartisan statement so that he and other Obama administration officials wouldn’t be accused of playing politics with this thing, this bombshell having to do with Russia, but McConnell refuses to sign it, and so the Republicans won’t do it and so at that point Obama just decides not to say anything.