title:  Trump Wants To Know Why Nobody Talked About Russian Hacking BEFORE The Election – Spoiler: They Did
text: Donald Trump has dismissed the CIA findings that Russia interfered in the election to help him win as  ridiculous.  Then, he claimed the whole Russian hacking thing is just a creation of the media and said Democrats are using it as an  excuse  for his  massive  win. For months during the campaign, Trump was hammered for his disturbing bromance with Putin and his public call for Russian hackers to  find  Hillary Clinton s  missing emails. Now, Trump wants to know why nobody was talking about the Russian hacking problem before the election. The same Russian hacking even he has been talking about for months.Unless you catch  hackers  in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn t this brought up before election?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016Even if you ignore the general news about Trump s involvement with Russia (and the fact that we bloggy people on the left have been jumping up and down screaming about it for what seems like forever), the issue was raised in all three presidential debates.In the first debate, Clinton brought up the subject of Russian hacking and Trump responded with this gem: I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? Clinton brought it up again during the second debate. We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election,  she said.  And believe me, they re not doing it to get me elected. They re doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump. Trump responded, maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia because they think they re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia. I know   I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. And the third debate featured this exchange:TRUMP: [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person.HILLARY CLINTON: Well, that s because he d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet.CLINTON: And it s pretty clear  TRUMP: You re the puppet!CLINTON: It s pretty clear you won t admit  TRUMP: No, you re the puppet.CLINTON:   that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.The outrage over Russia s meddling in our election began when the Democratic National Committee was hacked   in June. June! This is not the first time we are having this discussion, not by any stretch of the imagination.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images