The Senate Intelligence Committee released its bipartisan report on Russia’s use of social media to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and concludes the Kremlin sought to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by spreading disinformation.

From the report: “The Committee found, that the IRA sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”

The report also called on the Executive Branch to “reinforce with the public the danger of attempted foreign interference in the 2020 election.”

President Trump accused Democrats of “interfering” with the 2020 presidential election and the “continuing to interfere” with the 2016 election.

“This is basic stuff. Foreign donors — and certainly foreign governments — cannot participate in the American political process.”

— Mike Pence, in the 2016 vice presidential debate.

“It was like applying for a job and getting 66 million letters of recommendation and losing to a corrupt human tornado.”

— Hillary Clinton, in an interview with CBS News, about the 2016 presidential election.

“His campaign manager is a felon. His deputy campaign manager is a felon. His personal lawyer is a felon. His foreign policy advisor is a felon. His national security advisor is a felon. The Trump campaign was run by criminals.”

— GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, on Twitter.

“I need killers, I want somebody to fight. Chris Christie calls me nonstop about this job. He calls me every ten seconds; he’d do anything for this job. He is dying to be vice president. And you, it’s like you don’t care. I need killers! Do you want this thing or not?’”

— Donald Trump, quoted in Piety & Power, offering Mike Pence the chance to be his running mate in 2016.

Piety & Power

Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House

by Tom LoBianco · Dey Street Books · 2019

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William Galston: “In the Blue Wall triad—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—Mr. Trump’s job approval has been consistently lower than in Florida, Georgia and Texas, where it stands at or above 50%, as it also does in Ohio. Three other states—North Carolina, Iowa and Arizona—occupy an intermediate zone in which Mr. Trump’s popularity is higher than in the Blue Wall but lower than in the South.”

“In other words, if the president can hold his Democratic challenger’s popular-vote advantage at or near the 2 percentage points of 2016, he may well prevail again in the Electoral College. At the other end of the spectrum, if the Democrat were to approach Barack Obama’s 7-point margin in 2008, victory over Mr. Trump would be assured. Even if there is a huge mobilization of Democrats in solidly blue states, a 4-point popular-vote advantage would probably include enough voters in swing states to create a blue Electoral College majority. It’s impossible to determine exactly where the tipping point lies between 2 and 4 percentage points.”

The Electoral Vote Map lets you test various paths to victory.

Washington Post: “The IRA, the Russian troll factory U.S. prosecutors blame for the massive disinformation campaign during the 2016 campaign, devoted enormous attention and preparation to its Maryland campaign, all in a likely effort, experts say, to widen racial divisions and demoralize African American voters.”

President Trump claimed on Twitter that Google “manipulated” votes in the 2016 election that would have given him an even greater lead over his opponent and that the company “should be sued,” CNBC reports.

“Trump’s tweet appears to refer to documents leaked to conservative group Project Veritas, but the documents do not appear to contain any outright allegation of vote manipulation or attempts to bias the election.”

Hillary Clinton fired back at Trump: “The debunked study you’re referring to was based on 21 undecided voters. For context that’s about half the number of people associated with your campaign who have been indicted.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, allegations of Trump campaign collusion, and obstruction of justice by the president has been downloaded nearly 800 million times, Politico reports.

Alan Abramowitz: “I find no evidence that Russian attempts to target voters in key swing states had any effect on the election results in those states. Instead, the results were almost totally predictable based on the political and demographic characteristics of those states, especially their past voting tendencies, ideological leanings, and demographics. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Russians weren’t trying to influence the results or that they might not succeed in the future. Nor does it speak to Russian efforts to hack into U.S. voting systems and potentially alter voter registration data or even election results themselves.”

“There are plenty of grounds for real concern here. Indeed, the Electoral College system used to choose the president almost invites efforts to interfere in the election. Whereas trying to affect the national popular vote results would probably be prohibitively expensive, efforts to target a few key swing states could be much more cost-effective and harder to detect.”

Stuart Rothenberg: “For all the talk about why Donald Trump was elected president while losing the popular vote and how he could win again, one of the least discussed results of the 2016 election offers valuable lessons for Democrats.”

“An astounding 7.8 million voters cast their presidential ballots for someone other than Trump or Hillary Clinton. The two biggest third-party vote-getters were Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (almost 4.5 million votes) and the Green Party’s Jill Stein (1.5 million voters). But others received almost another 1.9 million votes as well.”

“Libertarians and Greens may try to convince you that this reflects growing support for their parties. It doesn’t. Their strong showing was due to the unpopularity of the two major-party nominees.”

Chicago Tribune: “As 20 presidential contenders descend upon Detroit for the second round of Democratic debates Tuesday and Wednesday, party officials and African American political leaders point to Clinton’s loss to Trump in Michigan as a cautionary tale of what can happen when a Democrat takes black voters for granted.”

“Trump won thanks in large part to the collapse of the so-called blue wall in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. While Clinton faltered among white working-class voters in all three states, she also notably underperformed in the urban centers of Philadelphia, Milwaukee and — most of all — Detroit.”