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In April, Bernie Sanders and Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez took off on a bumpy cross-country road trip. Their unity tour mostly served to highlight their differences and remind people that Sanders is not actually a Democrat. May it be a lesson to Democrats: Unity requires agreement, which requires debate.

Many expected 2016s losing party to engage in fierce debate and a bloody civil war. Had Republicans lost, theyd have opened fire on one another in their concession speeches. Democrats took another tack. First, they rehired all their top management; their discredited consultants and decrepit congressional leaders. Then, in the spirit of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, they cancelled the debate.

Party elders say its no time to squabble. They always say that. The specter of an emotionally arrested, proto-fascist fraud in the White House adds force to their argument, but ducking debate is what got Democrats here in the first place. This is in fact the exact right time, maybe even their last chance, to have one. So, whats stopping them?

One problem is President Donald Trump. The danger is that while rubbernecking his 50-car pileup of a presidency Democrats run their own car into a ditch. A favorite Democratic strategy is to sit idly by, waiting for Republicans to implode. Trumps serial idiocy and fast-mounting legal woes may trick them into thinking this time it may work.

Barack Obama is another problem. His charm was the glue that held Democrats together. They need to own their mistakes, which, by and large, are his. Its a tender topic. Democrats in love with Obama prefer defending his legacy to saying what theyd do different. They pay a steep price for letting their feelings cloud their vision.

Political parties civil wars often take the form of insurrections. In 2009, the GOP base laid siege to the party, driving scores of incumbents from office. In just seven years, the worst Republican Party ever perfected a near monopoly of power. Democratic leaders warn their base that intraparty warfare would spell their doom. But it was while Democrats papered over their differences and Republicans shot each other in the streets that Republicans drove Democrats into exile. Civil wars, while risky, are also the chief means by which political parties are renewed.

The divisions that led to Republican civil war were relatively minor. Apart from the bank bailout, the principal grievance of the GOP base was that its leaders didnt simply arrest Obama. Divisions between the Democratic base and its elites ran far deeper, yet there was little unrest to speak of. A crucial factor was the tight bond between the party and institutions that purport to speak for the base.

Progressives once prized their independence. For a century, independent, progressive movements gave the party vision, energy and spine. Late 19th-century populists, early 20th-century progressives and the mighty, mid-20thcentury labor movement kept Democrats in a constant state of political and intellectual ferment. Thus was forged a social contract, and with it the modern middle class.

In the early 1980s, liberal groups formed political action committees and entered electoral politics. The party soon colonized them. Grassroots movements morphed into Washington lobbies, trading the politics of pressure for the politics of access. They became so obsessed with defending Democrats, they lost the will to challenge them. Both sides were better off in a more arms length relationship. Progressives can do little when they are chloroformed and pinned down in a Democratic display case.

In 2016 Sanders backers fumed over theDemocratic National Committees conniving with Hillary Clintons campaign. But the DNC could screw up a two-car funeral. Its too ineffectual to effect anything as big and complicated as an election.Progressives made Clinton. Without labor, shed have opened the 2016 campaign with three straight losses (in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada). Labors top goals were blocking trade deals and enacting a living wage. Sanders was with labor. Clinton wasnt. He outperformed her in nearly every general election poll. Labor went with her anyway, often without consulting the rank and file.

Most old line, Washington-based African-American, womens, LGBT and environmental groups did likewise. It was the progressive establishment, not the party establishment, that secured Clintons nomination. The democratization of the Democratic Party starts with the democratization of the left.

What hope and energy we have comes from web-based mass membership groups like Democracy for America and Moveon.org and upstarts like the Working Families Party(which endorses but also primaries Democrats while seeking its own spot on the ballot) and 350.org(which doesnt even do electoral politics). But the new kids on the block cant do all the heavy lifting.

People hear debate on the left and think the Democratic Party is having one. But party leaders debate only when forced to by their base.Much of the left no longer engages the Democratic Party. The Tea Party showed us how much incumbents fear primaries, yet the Green Party is content to run protest candidates in general elections. The problem isnt just votes lost in November but energy drained year-round from a party in desperate need of a revolt. The left still doesnt know how or where to bring the fight. The goal isnt just to reform the party establishment but to replace it.

Even if Democrats woke up tomorrow morning wanting to debate, they might not know how. In the 80s, Republicans poured hundreds of millions of dollars into right-wing think tanks. Democrats invested their more modest fortunes in pollsters and consultants. To this day, when Republicans make a case, Democrats tell a story, which is sort of like bringing cotton candy to a knife fight.

Democrats waste millions on corporate marketing techniques that work only for the other side. Their technology contains the seeds of their defeat. The 2012 Obama campaign was hailed for its advances in data mining and narrowcasting to niche markets. But saying different things to different people isnt how you get change. Its how you stop it. The way you get change is by engaging a whole nation in a single debate.

I was once privileged to work for the nuclear freeze movement. We didnt have different ads for different states. If we had a slogan, I cant recall it. We werent for world peace. We were for a bilateral, verifiable freeze on the development, production and deployment of nuclear weapons. Without concreteness and specificity, there can be no real demand or debate. Change comes via primitive forms of communication: People sharing values face-to-face, not for 30 seconds or 140 characters, but for as long as it takes to change a mind or explain a new idea.

In farewell interviews Obama was often asked to name his biggest mistake. His invariable response: He wished hed done a better job telling our story. But he didnt need to tell a story about Obamacare. He needed to fix it. Democrats listen too much to nimble thinkers like Drew Westen and George Lakoff who tell them they need narratives and metaphors to reach past our prefrontal cortexes to regions of the brain that run our emotions. Maybe, but do our reptilian brains ever choose progress? Democrats dont need a story; they need a blueprint.

The greatest impediment to debate is of course the Democrats addiction to high-dollar fundraising. Big money doesnt just favor one party over the other; it mortgages both parties to the status quo and thus to the past. Democrats craft separate messages for their donors and their voter base, encrypting each of them in hard-to-crack code. The result is a message so muddled no one understands or trusts what they say.

In 2016 more millennials voted for the Libertarian Party than the Green Party, perhaps because the loudest voice in Congress to defend our privacy and resist our impulse to empire is Rand Pauls. Democrats must help America see that its safety lies not in force of arms but in the rule of law, and that assaults on privacy are assaults on ones very personhood. On the overarching issue of our time, climate change, Democrats still dont speak loudly or clearly enough. There are so many issues Democrats are afraid to debate; its hard to know where to begin. They might start by facing three huge issues left unresolved in 2016:

Health care:Democrats scorn Republicans for not producing a plausible alternative to Obamacare, but neither have the Dems. Obamacare isnt dying, but it has a fatal flaw: It costs too much. The best solution is single-payer national health insurance; you cant even make a dent in the problem without a strong public option. Obama ran on a public option but came to view it as a liberal fetish rather than a way to make health care affordable to small businesses and the self-employed. He promised to bring C-Span cameras into health care negotiations but instead went behind closed doors to grandfather the insurance and pharmaceutical industries into his system. He thus gave up all hope of containing costs. Its time Democrats admitted their mistake and embraced an alternative. As 60 percent of Americans support single-payer plans,Democrats might start the conversation there.

Trade:Economists still tout David Ricardos theory of comparative advantage. Ricardo was a smart guy, but hes been gone a long time. Today comparative advantage means huge companies on an endless prowl for low wages and weak governments. In developing countries, thislifts people out of poverty but never into the middle class. In developed countries, it shrinks the middle class while enabling corporations to encroach further on democracy. Had the Trans-Pacific Partnership been debated in public rather than brokered in secret, such issues might have been addressed, perhaps even resolved.

Public corruption:In 2008 and 2016, the winning candidates closing argument was all about corruption. Obamas vow to fix Washington was less vivid than Trumps vow to drain the swamp, but it was the same promise. Sanders campaign boiled down to three points: Our democracy is corrupt, the middle class is dying and the reason the middle class is dying is that our democracy is corrupt. Hillary Clinton was such a weak candidate not because she was personally corrupt but because the whole system is corrupt, and she didnt want to believe it.

Public corruption is so invisible to elites it drove two historic elections but barely drew notice from pundits. The worst is what we mislabel soft corruption all the stuff thats clearly wrong but still legal; the campaign cash, the no-bid contracts, the revolving doors and all the ethics laws that reward the subtle rather than the good. Global finance capitalism runs less on innovation than corruption. Democrats must admit it, fire every leader who wont, and then put the issue where it belongs, at the center of the debate.

The lessons of 2016 are hard but simple: On, the power of ideas is greater than the power of money. Two, policy precedes message;first figure out what you believe, then how to tell people about it. Trump won by co-opting issues of political reform and economic justice. He didnt steal them; they were a gift from Democrats. What would it take to get them back? Probably a revolt for sure a debate. Leaders must turn away from their donors and their consultants and re-enter the marketplace of ideas. Any who resist must be sent packing,before time runs out.

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Yes, Democrats need a civil war: Believe it or not, it's the only real ... - Salon

Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump without saying his name Saturday, telling a crowd of Florida Democrats last year's election unleashed a coarseness that hadn't been seen in decades but he said the party's candidates can overcome that by showing disgruntled voters that they have solutions.

Giving a campaign-style, 45-minute speech at the state Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner, Biden told about 1,300 party supporters that Democrats must help Americans see that the future is bright and overcome their fears. Biden has said he isn't planning a third run for president by challenging Trump in 2020 though he hasn't ruled it out either and he certainly acted like a potential candidate Saturday. He got laughs when he pointed out Saturday was his 40th wedding anniversary, but he was spending it giving a speech.

"This past election cycle churned up some of the ugliest, ugliest realities that persist in our country. Civilized discourse and real debate gave way to the coarsest rhetoric, stoking some of the darkest emotions in this nation," said Biden, 74. "I thought that after all these years we had passed the days when it was acceptable for politicians to bestow legitimacy on hate speech and fringe ideologies."

Biden said Democrats could overcome that by showing everyone from working-class white men to women to minorities that they are the party of ideas and solutions. He called investing in schools, community colleges and infrastructure and providing health care, saying that's how to improve the economy, not by building walls and excluding Muslim immigrants.

"We have to make it clear what we stand for and unite Americans behind the values which we stand for," Biden said. "We can't get bogged down in this phony debate going on in the Democratic Party. The Hobson's choice we have been given is that we need to become less progressive and focus more on working folk or become more progressive and focus less on working folk. There is no need to choose. They are not inconsistent."

He said Democrats need to show Americans that their country is still the greatest in the world and will be for the foreseeable future. China, he said, is no match with its exploding population, lack of clean water and polluted farmland and that the U.S. military is the world's strongest by far.

"I believe with every fiber of my being that we are better positioned than any nation in the world to be the single-most productive, capable, value-added country," Biden said. "The reason why the rest of the world looks to us and this administration doesn't get it is that the example of our power is the power of our example. That's why we are able to lead."

If Biden were to challenge Trump, Florida would be vital to his campaign as it is the largest swing state. Democrats and Republicans have split Florida over the last six elections and in 13 of the last 14 its winner took the presidency.

Biden has been busy this month, launching a political action committee, American Possibilities, that would be a springboard if he runs for president; flying to Greece, where he addressed a climate change conference; speaking three days later at a Utah political summit organized by 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney; and attending the commissioning in Houston of a battleship named after former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a 2011 assassination attempt.

Biden served 36 years in the Senate from Delaware and twice chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. He considered challenging Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the 2016 nomination but was emotionally spent after his 46-year-old son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer. A bid for the 1988 nomination ended after he plagiarized a speech and exaggerated his college record. A 2008 bid ended quickly when he got 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses that kick off the nominating season.

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Democrats need better outreach to frightened voters, former VP Biden says - Chicago Tribune

By all rights Georgia Democratic congressional candidate, Jon Ossoff, shouldnt even be in the Georgia special election congressional race. He should be in Congress. The Georgia congressional special election was a race that could and should have been won by him the first go around. The district seemed ripe for the Democrats to finally beat a Republican somewhere.

There was a small army of GOP candidates running helter-skelter against each other in the GOP primary. There were lots of young, immigrant, Hispanic and African-American voters that have fast changed the voter demographic of the district. Ossoff typified the change. Hes young, politically savvy, and raised more money than practically any other newly minted Democratic candidate running for a congressional seat ever did.

Democratic committee organizing groups put boots on the ground in the district to rev up voter interest and excitement for Ossoff. He came close to an outright primary win. But that was the problem, he didnt win and now the test in elections like the Georgia special election is not just whether he can win, but whether Democrats can figure out how to beat Trump in races that they must win. The very first step toward doing that was to start winning some congressional seats in the run-up to the 2018 mid-term elections. They lost two special elections, in Kansas and Montana, that were arguably winnable. They lost in part because the Democratic national and local committees didnt put money and troops into a massive on the ground voter education, registration, and voter turn-out effort. They lost in greater part because they ran scared of the GOP in both states. They assumed that they couldnt beat a GOP candidate in a deep red state.

Now theres Georgia. Some lessons have been learned since the losses in Kansas and Montana and Ossoffs failure to win the seat outright in the primary. There are more Democratic organizers in the district. The focus is on door-to-door, face-to-face, voter outreach, targeting African-American voters in the district, and working the phones and voter registration rolls to get more people to the polls.

However, there are three crucial lessons for the Democrats to learn to beat Trump and the GOP. The first is that the Democrats make a horrendous mistake in relying on a GOP opponent to shoot themselves in the foot. This thinking didnt work so well with Trump, and it hasnt worked anywhere else where Democrats try to link a GOP candidate to Trump, or go negative on a GOP opponent. The GOP wont beat itself. Democratic contenders must do that through hard, patient, organizing telling voters why they should vote for a Democrat, and not simply vote against a Republican.

The second lesson is that putting time, energy, and resources into an over the top reach for supposed on the fence white, mostly male, less educated rural and blue-collar workers wont work. For now, they are locked down for Trump and the GOP. The Democrats must reconnect with and reenergize their traditional base, African-Americans, Hispanics, and youth. Their voting numbers plunged in 2016 from 2008 and 2012. The reason wasnt just that Obama wasnt on the ticket in 2016. The brutal reality was that the Democrats did what many black voters have screamed at them about for years, and that is take them for granted. The assumption was that the terror of a Trump White House win was enough for black voters to storm the polls. It didnt happen. A party and a candidate must get off their haunches, put lots of face time into talking to voters about why they are important, and what exactly the candidate will do for them for their vote. Black voters want to know for instance about health care, but they also want to know about issues such as police abuse, and jobs, and what a Democrat will do about them.

The other lesson is that spending millions on TV ads, and getting big name celebrities or party big shot endorsements means little. In more cases than not, its a turn-off. People get sick of being preached to in non-stop sound bite TV ads that endlessly go negative about the rival candidate. Theres much evidence that celebrities and a national party household name official barging into a local race and commanding voters to vote for a Democrat has almost no effect.

The Democratic National Committee following the 2016 presidential election was, by any standard, a wreck and a ruin. It got pounded for misstep after misstep that included: poor and disconnected leadership, leaked emails, gross favoritism, petty infighting, blatant manipulation of the primaries and gross cluelessness about the Trump threat. There were clearly hard lessons to be learned from this. Those lessons werent learned in the Kansas and Montana special elections. Georgia will tell just what the Democrats have learned since then. This could be a make or break election for the Democrats. If its break, the Democrats are in even bigger trouble.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book, The Trump Challenge to Black America (Middle Passage Press) will be released in August. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

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The Georgia Special Election is Make or Break for Democrats - HuffPost

Sen. Amy KlobucharAmy KlobucharKlobuchar defends Senate Democrats on Trump nominations Klobuchar: Trump tweets squander 'moment of governorship' Sunday shows preview: Trump pushes back as Russia probe heats up MORE (D-Minn.) defended Democratic lawmakers on Sunday against Republicans' allegations that Democrats have blocked President Trump from filling open jobs in his administration.

"I'm not saying we're perfect throughout time, but I do know that all of his Cabinet nominees are now in place, that they have been voted on some with significant Democratic support," Klobuchar said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Now we're working down to the next level, and they ... haven't put people up for a lot of those positions," she added. "When they come up, especially in the military area, the security area, we try to move quickly on those."

Trump has largely blamed Senate Democrats for obstructing his nominees and ultimately preventing him from filling out his administration.

He tweeted earlier this month that Democrats "are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors."

While the Senate has been slower to confirm Trump's nominees than those of past presidents, the White House has been slow in nominating people to fill certain positions.

The White House is picking up the pace of nominations, however, with 92 since the beginning of May.

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Klobuchar defends Senate Democrats on Trump nominations - The Hill

Donald Trump | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Democrats say Trump has yet to express public concern about the underlying issue with striking implications for Americas democracy.

By Cory Bennett

6/18/17, 8:50 AM CET

Updated 6/18/17, 2:07 PM CET

Democrats are uniting behind a simple message about Russian hacking during the 2016 election: Donald Trump doesnt care.

Even as the president lashes out at the series of Russia-related probes besieging his administration, Democrats say Trump has yet to express public concern about the underlying issue with striking implications for Americas democracy the digital interference campaign that upended last years presidential race.

The president missed a self-imposed 90-day deadline for developing a plan to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks, stayed silent after Moscow-linked hackers went after the French election and publicly renewed his own skepticism about the Kremlins role in the digital theft of Democratic Party emails during the presidential race. Privately, the president questioned a senior NSA official about the truthfulness of the conclusion from 17 intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered with the election, according to The Wall Street Journal. On Capitol Hill, Trump and his team have declined to support a Republican-backed effort to hit Russia with greater penalties for its digital belligerence.

And while the White House received bipartisan praise for a cybersecurity executive order Trump signed in May, administration officials said the directive is aimed at broadly upgrading the governments digital defenses, not thwarting future Russian election hacking.

Instead, Trump tapped a commission led by Vice President Mike Pence to investigate an issue that elections experts call vastly overblown voter fraud, something the the president has baselessly alleged resulted in millions of illegal voters casting ballots for Hillary Clinton in November.

There doesnt seem to be a recognition of the seriousness of this threat from Russia, said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, during a hearing this past week. We have to hear from the administration how theyre going to take that on.

There has been little sign of consequences so far from the Trump White House, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said on the Senate floor Wednesday night.

Democrats are coalescing around this narrative amid a series of rattling news reports that have offered the most concrete examples to-date of how vast and dynamic the alleged Russian digital ambush may have been, along with alarmed public comments from current and former U.S. intelligence leaders.

In the past two weeks, The Intercept published what it called a secret NSA document that described an aggressive, Moscow-backed hacking campaign to compromise state election officials, perhaps with the ultimate goal of meddling with votes. A subsequent Bloomberg report detailed Russian intrusions into 39 state voter databases and software systems, including one instance when hackers tried and failed to delete voter information.

Former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers June 8 that the Russians had hundreds and perhaps more than 1,000 targets in their hacking cross hairs during the election. And, he warned, Theyll be back.

There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever, Comey said in his widely watched testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. And it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government.

But Trump appears not to share that alarm, Democrats say.

The silence from the White House is deafening, said Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels probing Russias election-year activities. President Trump has yet to publicly express any concern or condemnation regarding these hostile acts by a principal adversary of the United States.

Democrats also warn that such revelations are the merely a preview of what will eventually come out about the election-year hacking.

I cant say too much, but I can tell you this. You have only seen the tip of the iceberg, said Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who has led the charge for states to harden their systems against hacking, during an interview with POLITICO.

Even some Republicans have spent the last week implicitly pressing the Trump administration to more forcefully rebuke of Russia as Congress debated a measure that would slap extra sanctions on Moscow.

Russia is no friend of the United States, said Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the Finance and Banking committees, in a statement. The U.S. cannot stand by and allow Vladimir Putin and his cronies to bully Ukraine, and other neighboring nations, and meddle in free and fair elections across the globe.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Comey piqued Democrats when he told lawmakers the president had never once asked him about Russian hacking, despite the numerous one-on-one conversations they had about the FBIs investigation into the issue.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, asked Comey if he agreed that Trump wasnt particularly interested in the probes into Russian meddling. Theres no doubt its a fair judgment, Comey replied.

In multiple hearings since, Democrats ranging from Warner to Reed to Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate from West Virginia have picked up on these details.During Attorney General Jeff Sessions closely watched testimony Tuesday, Manchin focused on the idea that Trump didnt care about potential Russian interference going all the way back to the campaign.

In the campaign, up until through the transition, was there ever any meeting where he showed any concern or consideration or just inquisitiveness of what the Russians were really doing and if they had really done it? he asked.

I dont recall any such conversation, replied Sessions, a Trump surrogate during the campaign who was the first high-profile senator to endorse the real estate moguls long-shot White House bid.

During a hearing the same day on the Pentagons fiscal 2018 budget, Reed pressed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about whether Trump had clearly laid out in some type of authoritative way, the mission to protect the country in this respect, given Moscows apparent digital assault.

Mattis answered vaguely, offering to give more details in a closed session.

We are in constant contact with the national security staff on this and we are engaged, not just in discussing the guidance, but in actual defensive measures, he said.

But Democrats want more stronger rhetoric, stricter economic penalties on Kremlin-linked cyber assailants and tighter campaign finance laws to expose any American candidates who are backed by Russian funding.

And theyre finding a willing partner in their colleagues across the aisle. Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate this past week hammered out a deal to attach a new Russia sanctions package onto an Iran sanctions bill. The full measure passed overwhelmingly on Thursday by a 98-2 vote.

The language would force the White Houses hand on Russia, codifying into law Obama-era penalties that the White House has considered lifting, while adding more sanctions against Russias defense and military-intelligence sectors.

Joining with Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the package as the first step in crafting a policy response to cyberattacks against our country and called on the Pentagon and intelligence community to develop a warfighting doctrine and strategy which recognizes cyberattacks.

Yet in two Capitol Hill appearances this past week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to endorse the Russia deal, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Banking Committees top Democrat, accused the White House of trying to block or dilute the bill.

Regardless, Democrats are already drawing the battle lines for more fights over Russia.

We must do more, Whitehouse said on the Senate floor after the measure passed, singling out Trump: Now the question will shift to the White House.

Whitehouse is the top Democrat on Judiciarys Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, which is conducting its own probe into Russias election-year interference. He has focused on Russias potential ability to finance preferred candidates in foreign elections, citing the major loans that a Russia-based bank gave to Frances far-right, nationalist party, the National Front.

We should certainly push back by requiring political entities in this country to report their sources of funding, Whitehouse said. There are few safeguards in place to prevent foreign actors from funneling money into our elections through faceless shell companies.

House Democrats are also fighting against Republican-led efforts to close the Election Assistance Commission, the federal agency created after the Bush v. Gore recount that offers voluntary assistance to states on running elections. The House Administration Committee earlier this year approved a bill that would shutter the EAC, with supporters arguing it has become outdated. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and Pennsylvania Rep. Bob Brady, the Administration panels top Democrat, renewed their partys opposition to the closure following the Bloomberg report on the 39 states that Moscow apparently hit.

Efforts to undermine or eliminate the EAC ought to be put to rest, they said.

The White House has not publicly commented on the bill.

Many Democrats are nervously eyeing the rapidly approaching 2018 midterm elections. Top intelligence officials warn that Moscow will apply the knowledge it gained in 2016 to go even further in 2018.

Theyre going to come for whatever party they choose to try and work on behalf of, and theyre not devoted to either, in my experience, Comey told lawmakers. Theyre just about their own advantage.

And the window for the White House to take action is closing. Russian hackers started probing campaign and election-related systems well over a year before last years Election Day, intelligence officials have said.

We are the greatest democracy in the world, and people cant lose faith in the system, McAuliffe said.

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Trump's silence on Russian hacking hands Democrats new weapon - POLITICO.eu