Monday, July 16, 2018

Helsinki

I have been barking mad, foaming at the mouth all day over the press conference in Helsinki.  Rather than posting the gigantic screed rolling around in my head, I will quote Senator john McCain.  Frequently I disagree with him, but not today.
No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are — a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. American presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is to succeed. Americans are waiting and hoping for President Trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. One can only hope they are not waiting totally in vain.
The full text of Senator McCain’s remarks can be found here.

Update to post 7/19/18.

Did you EVER think you would see a US president actually consider turning over twelve US citizens to Putin for interrogation?   One of the things discussed with Putin in the Helsinki summit was Putin's offer to send the twelve GRU agents that were indicted by Mueller to the US in exchange for Michael McFaul (former ambassador to Russia) and eleven other citizens who were involved in applying the sanctions called out by the Magnitsky legislation.  Apparently the president considered it.  Today he backed off and said it wouldn't be done - after a unanimous vote by the Senate to protect McFaul.  WAPO wrote an article about it.

An additional bombshell has been delivered by the NYT.  On January 6, 2017, the newly elected president was given a very detail briefing about Russia's interference in the election.
Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.
The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.
Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed.
 So, he's known all along that Russia did it.  Russia did do it.  The only question now, is how much did the campaign know, and when did they know it.

5 comments:

  1. Former CIA director John Brennan said it well: "nothing short of treasonous."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think treasonous is a very good description as he went away from the findings of the national security service. How can that be allowed? I imagine the upper echelons of the US Establishment are not happy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The president is clearly compromised, and Putin's smirk lets us know it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So he has now said that he "misspoke" re. Russian meddling in the election. He must have caught some serious hell when he got back to the White House to retract anything -- don't think that has ever happened before. But it doesn't sound like anyone is buying his retraction. When he goes off script, his true colors come out. This man doesn't deserve to be called an American.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you need more material to ruin your good mood I suggest watching C-Span's Washington Journal for a few mornings. The heated angry Trumpers who call in with views based on "facts" from unknown sources is just mind boggling.

    ReplyDelete