President Trump promised to surround himself with the best advisers. Apparently that includes a former KGB intelligence officer named Vladimir Putin.
Trump just made it clear that he takes the word of Putin over that of his own intelligence community. Asked at a press conference with Putin whether he would condemn Russian meddling in the general election, a censure that would require admitting that meddling occurred, the president deferred to the KGB over the CIA.
“Dan Coats came to me and some others; they said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said in a particularly shameful moment at a joint press conference after the Helsinki summit. “I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
But Trump saved the worst for last. The leader of the free world says he has “confidence in both parties.”
[More: Trump dismisses Russian election meddling, doesn’t see ‘any reason’ for it]
An understanding of the nature of the Russian president and an acknowledgment of the better part of the last century make that a very dangerous and stupid statement. The two parties couldn’t be any more different.
Putin wants to restore the status of Russia as a superpower and bemoaned the fall of the former Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” He has no problem making and breaking promises toward that end, violating the 2015 Ukrainian ceasefire, the 2017 Syrian ceasefire, and the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Honesty is not the hallmark, it turns out, of a man who murders journalists, orders assassinations, and invades sovereign nations.
Coats and the intelligence community he represents want to preserve American hegemony and see Russia as a threat. They are the guys who swear an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution, the operatives who still believe we are the good guys.
The first party says there was no meddling in the elections. The second party says there was. The president listens to the group that speaks Russian and dreams of a resurgent Moscow. He snubs his own people in the process.
As a matter of fact, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government launched a campaign to influence the presidential election in Trump’s favor. Last Friday, the special counsel indicted a dozen Russian agents for doing exactly that and provided stunning details about how foreign actors tried to undermine our most basic right to vote.
Putting himself, not America first, Trump ignores their advice and defers to his Russian adviser Putin.
