Regardless of his other Russia-related controversies, President Trump would make a catastrophic mistake were he to allow Vladimir Putin’s investigators to interrogate former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
Yet, that’s exactly what Trump seems to be considering in relation to a request from his Russian counterpart to interrogate McFaul, Putin critic Bill Browder, and a number of other innocent Americans. At their Monday meeting in Finland, Putin told Trump that if he granted Russian investigators access to the Americans, Putin would grant special counsel Robert Mueller access to Russian intelligence officers indicted for attacking the Democratic National Committee’s Internet server.
Even by Putin’s theatrical standards, this offer is a special joke. It has no meaning beyond attempting to aggravate the U.S. national security establishment, undercut Trump, and distract from the looming British identification of Russian intelligence agents responsible for spreading nerve agents around the U.K. countryside. Amazingly, however, Trump has gulped down the “incredible” offer, and Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has said an interrogation deal is being considered.
Trump should think very carefully about his actions here.
[More: Trump ‘disagrees’ with Putin’s plan to interview US officials]
Because if the president agrees to this deal, he will flush his leadership credibility down the toilet and degrade the fabric of American democracy. Note here that McFaul, Browder, and the others listed on Putin’s request are nothing more than Putin critics. The claim that they engaged in widespread criminality is a fatuous product for Russian fake news casts — not an indictment towards justice. Still, it’s not complicated to see why these names were added to the list. The Russians particularly hate McFaul because as an ambassador between 2012 and 2014, he refused to be cowed by harassment from the Russian FSB intelligence service. Employing an array of KGB-developed tactics (and some measures even more aggressive than those employed by the KGB), Putin sought to push McFaul out the country. That McFaul stayed for two years testifies to his patriotic courage and that of the diplomats who serve under him, and serve in Russia today.
To set the precedent that law-abiding U.S. citizens are answerable to Putin’s authoritarian kleptocracy would be to desecrate Trump’s oath of office. And where would it lead? Were Trump to agree to the first round of interrogations, Putin would only ask for more. I would likely be a subject of the second round (although if required to sit down with the FSB, I would do so armed and dressed up as a knight from a Monty Python sketch).
But while this is a very serious matter, it is also, ultimately, very stupid. After all, the Russian interrogation teams would have to be carefully watched so that they didn’t attempt to poison or follow the U.S. interviewees from their interrogations. As an extension, there is only one possible reason why Mueller’s team would find value in going to Moscow: a fetish for sadomasochism. I guarantee you that the U.S. team would be harassed from the moment they landed to the moment they departed. And while the Russian intelligence officers would probably allow themselves to be interrogated, they would play games, perhaps reciting Russian fairy tales or swearing in different combinations. On the Mueller team’s departure, the Russians would then likely release a fake audio recording of their intelligence officers denying responsibility and taking Mueller’s team on a highly technical but useful-idiot-believable waltz through the wilderness of mirrors.
Trump must listen to national security adviser John Bolton. From his time in the Bush administration and the present White House, Bolton knows Putin well. And he knows that this absurdity cooked up in the Lubyanka is designed only to harm America.
