White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest wrapped Republicans and President-Elect Donald Trump in a Russian mantle this morning during his daily press conference.

With regard to Trump, Earnest pointed out that of course he knew about the hacks, because he "called on Russia to hack his opponent."

"He called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton, so he certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on," he continued.

"The last several weeks of the election were focused on a discussion of emails that had been hacked and leaked by the Russians. These were emails from the DNC and John Podesta, not from the RNC and Steve Bannon," he pointed out.

(Note: CNN cut the video just ahead of the reference to the RNC and Steve Bannon, but CSPAN has the full clip)

Video of Trump calling for Russians to hack Hillary can be viewed here. Clearly Trump understood who was being hacked, by whom, and for whose benefit.

From our report:

He then commented on the DNC hack and denied that it was Russian, but then begged and ordered them (a foreign country) to become his own personal hackers.

"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the thirty thousand emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. let's see if that happens."

Earnest then fired a warning shot at the Republicans who also knew all of this ahead of the election, yet still chose to endorse (and vote for) Trump.

"How they reconcile their political strategy and their patriotism is something they will have to explain," he warned.

It's a pretty simple explanation to this observer. Party over country, and that remains the guiding principle. Winning mattered more than our national security.

This is where I remind everyone yet again that Mitch McConnell, James Comey, and other Republicans intentionally aided and abetted foreign aggression against American democracy.

It will be quite difficult to reconcile that.