Who would have predicted that America would spend much of President Trump’s first 100 days, the traditional honeymoon phase of a presidency, wondering just what his tax returns and government probes of Russia’s interference in our elections might say about the new president’s connection to our geopolitical nemesis.

The White House in the past week has continued to work overtime trying to cloud news reports and congressional investigations on the Russian connection to the 2016 election and the president it sent to the White House.

All that energy could have been spent advancing the president’s populist agenda, if only the president would dispel suspicions he has lots at stake financially in Russia — by releasing his tax returns, and by cooperating more openly with the congressional investigations into possible links with the Russians who attacked the heart of our democratic process.

Instead, the White House is spending its time trying convince America — and allies — to move along, because there is nothing to see here.

We beg to differ. If there is nothing behind the curtain, Mr. President, then pull it back so we can all move on.

Instead, we learn that a pair of White House officials provided U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

This was meant to bolster the president’s odd Twitter claim, still unsubstantiated, that then-President Obama tapped Trump’s phone during the campaign. The move has basically exploded the House Russia probe because Intelligence Committee Democrats suspect their chairman is working for the Trump PR team, not for the American people.

To some, this is just the president trying to defend himself against a media witch hunt. To others it looks like a smoke screen and distraction from what’s real: that the FBI and Congress are both investigating the Russian interference in our election and our electoral system, something that all our intelligence agencies say happened and will happen again unless we uncover its elements and learn to counter it.

The suspicion that Trump associates have something to hide was reinforced when Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, offered — in exchange for immunity from prosecution — to be interviewed by House and Senate investigators who are examining the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

Trump fired Flynn after he was caught by reporters having lied to the vice president about his Russian contacts , who then embarrassed himself on national television parroting Flynn’s lies. But the president still speaks highly of Flynn and blames his forced departure on media reporting, not Flynn’s ties to Russia or his lies about them.

Russia’s meddling with our elections now and in the future just don’t seem to bother Trump. Why is that? Why not turn over tax returns like every other modern presidential candidate? Mandatory financial disclosures released last week show some of the president’s finances in outline but don’t provide the granular detail that could dispel the suspicion that he’s hiding something sinister.

Fortunately for Americans, FBI and Senate investigators seem willing to get to the bottom of the Russia affair.

Sen. John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate but no fan of Trump, sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as a threat to our democracy and international interests.

“We know for a fact the Russians tried to change the outcome of our election, attacking the very fundamentals of democracy,” McCain said this week. “We need to know how, we need to know why, and most of all we need to know what to do to prevent this kind of activity, which they continue to carry on in free nations around the world.” We agree.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, also a Republican, said that so far, his Senate committee has requested 20 individuals to be interviewed. Among them are likely to be the dozen or so Trump associates linked to Russian interests, so far. Among them: Flynn; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; Paul Manafort, who ran Trump’s campaign for several months; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as Exxon CEO was deeply involved with the Russian oil industry and saw mega-deals go south with U.S. sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Crimea; and even our new attorney general Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from the FBI probes because of meetings with Russians that he conveniently forgot when asked under oath before the Senate.

Just this week the Washington Post reported that United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump. Prince is the brother of our new education secretary, Betsy DeVos, and reportedly presented himself to the UAE as a Trump envoy.

Some of those Trump associates linked to Russian contacts have said they will testify openly before the Senate committee. We hope they do, because we just can’t understand this burning desire by Trump associates to talk with the Russians behind closed doors — and deny it until caught.

We think the American people deserve clear and convincing explanations.

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