Post-election, the Democrats have insisted that the 2016 election was delegitimized by Russian hacking. Yet they were curiously disinterested in doing anything about it.

Former President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity czar confirmed Wednesday that former national security adviser Susan Rice told him to “stand down” in response to Russian cyber attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Michael Daniel, whose official title was “cybersecurity coordinator,” confirmed the stand-down order during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing held to review the Obama and President Donald Trump’s administrations’ policy response to Russian election interference.

Why would Rice do that?

It’s fairly consistent with Obama’s Russia policy. That’s where the media narrative goes off the rails trying to explain why, if there was a hacking crisis, Obama chose to do nothing.

There are two possible answers.

1. Obama was all-in on appeasement. And while he enjoyed browbeating allies like the US and Israel, he rolled over and played dead for enemies like Iran, China and Russia.

2. The hacking was politically useful. Since we now know that Obama Inc. was conducting surveillance and eavesdropping on Trump associates, Russian intervention provided a very useful justification for the domestic operation. Rice issued a stand down order because she wanted the Russians to go on doing exactly what they were doing.