Byron York:
“…Recently, the Intelligence Community made clear it will be a player in the 2020 presidential election. No one should be surprised.
On Feb. 13, the House Intelligence Committee held a meeting at which intelligence officials briefed lawmakers on foreign efforts to influence U.S. elections. By several accounts, the officials told the committee that Russia is working to reelect President Trump.
A number of Republican committee members were deeply skeptical. What the officials said was classified, so they cannot discuss it publicly, but, in conversations later, GOP lawmakers made it clear that the intelligence officials did not have the evidence to support the assertion.
“How should reporting take place?” one member said later. “You would say, ‘We believe X is true based on A, B, C, and D.’ When that doesn’t happen, it’s very suspect.”
“If you’re going to make an accusation like that, you darn well better be ready to answer questions and have evidence to support it,” said another member. When pressed, the member added that officials gave “very vague and unsatisfying answers.”
The Republicans’ objection was not to the idea that Russia is trying to interfere in a U.S. election. That is an accepted fact. The problem was the assessment that Russia is specifically trying to help reelect Trump. That claim, so incendiary in the 2016 election, was unsupported by the evidence, they said.
As they left the meeting, Republicans agreed that the news would leak soon. It almost seemed to be why Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee chairman and impeachment leader, called the meeting in the first place.
No one was surprised when, a week later, the New York Times published a story, “Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump.” The news quickly became another one of those bombshell reports that consume hours of talk on cable TV…”