TOM COTTON TO CNN: You Know What the Biggest Intel Threat to the Election Is?
BASH: I want to turn to a very different topic, and that is something that the Justice Department said this week. They detailed a Russian government effort to stoke divisions in the U.S. using front organizations and social media prominent right-wing influencers like Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson, who have ties to Tenet Media. That’s a company that the Justice Department says was being funded by Russian operatives. You sit on the Intelligence Committee. How worried are you that right-wing influencers, people who do have an impact on their constituents, are being funded, either directly or indirectly, by the Russian government in order to make an impact on this election?
COTTON: Well, first off, Dana, we haven’t been in session, so I haven’t seen any intelligence about this matter. I have only seen the allegations I have read in the newspaper. People should not knowingly take money from the government of Russia or Iran or China or any other adversarial nation to try to influence the election. But I also think it’s fair to say that a few memes or videos in the vast sea of political commentary is not going to make much of a difference in this election, nor has it in past elections as well.
What did make a difference in the last election is the lies about Hunter Biden’s laptop that more than four dozen former intelligence officials lied about in the middle of that campaign. And most networks, including this one, bought that lie hook, line and sinker. That did make a difference in the election.
As Ed Morrissey concludes, “Hunter Biden’s convictions prove that the laptop was real, and that either leaves the media as partners in that American intel propaganda effort or as dupes. Either way, Dana Bash and CNN are the last people who should attempt to lecture anyone on ‘election interference.’ The last except for all of the other MSM outlets, of course.”