Of course Republicans in the House and Senate decided not to fund more money for Cyber Security, despite Facebook already uncovering thousands of Russia-based accounts and the US Intelligence Community saying Russia is still actively involved and a real threat to the upcoming e******ns. Russia elected Trump. Putin is their ace-in-the-hole. And that is why we hear blatant lies about previously proven Russia interference from Trump and Rep. Lou Barletta.

Which makes the gaslighting tweet from Trump that Russia intereference will be for Democrats this time all the more absurd. Besides making a war on our Democratic Process sound like just a given, no big deal, why not spend the money to stop that from happening? Putin said to the world he wanted Trump to win the e******n. Trump has been nothing but loving towards his BFF. Nothing has changed.

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) defended Republicans’ recent decision to v**e down additional funding for e******n security by spreading disinformation during an interview on CNN on Friday.

“What we also found out in all of this talk is that Russia wasn’t able to interfere with our e******ns,” said Barletta, who is currently running for Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) seat, contradicting what intelligence chiefs publicly said just the day before.

“They’re trying,” host Alisyn Camerota interjected. “And in the midterms, they may succeed.”

“But Alisyn, if they’re not able to do it, why would you spend more money?” Barletta responded. “You wouldn’t do that at home. If you’re putting something in your home and it’s doing the job, why would you spend more money if what you have is succeeding? That doesn’t make sense.”

“We have a lot of places we can spend money, but putting more money to something that’s already working doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he added.

Less than 24 hours before Barletta’s comments on CNN, the nation’s top intelligence officials held a news briefing to warn that the threat of Russian interference in the midterm e******ns is “real” and “continuing.”

“Our focus here today is simply to tell the American people we acknowledge the threat. It is real. It is continuing. And we’re doing everything we can to have a l********e e******n that the American people can have trust in,” said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Just a week ago, Sen. Claire McCask**l (D-MO) confirmed her office was targeted by hackers using techniques similar to the ones Russian hackers used to hack the Democratic National Committee’s emails in 2016. This week, Facebook announced it has removed two dozen pages for “inauthentic behavior.”

While the intelligence community tries to make clear that they are taking the prospect of Russian interference in the midterms seriously, President Trump — like Barletta — has tried to gaslight people about the threat.

In recent weeks, GOP majorities in both the House and Senate have blocked Democratic efforts to allocate more funds for e******n security. These moves came less than a month after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officials for hacking the DNC’s servers in 2015 and 2016, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) servers, and the email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The indictment details how Russians hackers took cues from Trump’s public comments.

The stolen emails were then published by WikiLeaks as part of a pro-Trump propaganda campaign that Trump amplified at least 164 times during speeches in the final month of the campaign.

Barletta’s CNN interview came just hours after Trump stumped for him in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Trump’s nearly 90-minute speech was particularly unhinged, with the president at various points mimicking MS-13 stabbings and suggesting he may still lock up Hillary Clinton. He didn’t mention concerns about e******n security a single time.
https://thinkprogress.org/lou-barletta-e******n-security-funding-russian-meddling-cnn-trump-599e1ad48342/