SMART MOVE – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus shows how the pros do it in handling the issue of Russian hacking.  From Fox:

Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus suggested Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump will accept that Russia is behind the hacking of Democrats' email accounts during the 2016 White House election if the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community draft a report with that consensus agreement.

“I think he would accept the conclusion if they would get together, put out a report and show the American people they are on the same page,” Priebus said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump won the presidential race in an upset victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whose campaign was hurt by a raft of emails hacked from campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account, then released by WikiLeaks.

The Trump campaign has suggested the effort to tie Russia to the leaks is an attempt to delegitimize his victory.

“There’s no evidence that shows the outcome of the elections was changed by a couple of dozen John Podesta emails,” Priebus, who is still chairman of the Republican National Committee, also said Sunday.

He added that the intelligence community is “almost there” on a consensus finding about Russia’s involvement.

“I think they’ll get there,” he said.

COMMENT:  A reasonable approach, with Priebus wisely adding that there's no evidence the e-mails actually changed the outcome of the election.

If truth be told, foreign nations regularly try to influence our politics and, by extension, our elections.  The Brits had a huge influence program in the U.S. just before World War II, trying to influence American opinion.  There are many foreign lobbies.  We have the Foreign Agents Registration Act to try to keep track of them.

The only difference now is the method – hacking.  Is it wrong?  Sure.  And Russia should be sanctioned over it.  But we now know that President Obama was aware of the hacking long before election day, and did virtually nothing about it. 

I find it amusing that suddenly the Dems are concerned about Russian influence – something new for the modern Democratic Party which applauded the "reset" with Russia put in motion by President Obama and announced, ironically, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Electoral College meets tomorrow.  Donald Trump will win.  He'll be president.

On the other hand, Trump's relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin is an entirely appropriate matter for discussion.  I'm concerned about it, and it should be monitored and explored.  But it's an issue separate from the hacking story, and more important.

December 18,  2016