We’ve all seen the photos, where Donald Trump preens and panders to Vladimir Putin. We’ve seen the handshake, where Trump’s hand is underneath Putin’s, a subtle yet obvious hint of who is dominant in the relationship. And it’s widely known that “the president dissuades, if not prohibits, the mentioning of any intelligence which is not favorable to Russia.” Last week, the lid finally blew off when it was revealed that Putin has paid bounties to Taliban rebels in Afghanistan to kill American troops. Former ambassador Michael McFaul, nails the Putin/Trump dynamic in a Washington Post editorial, which is both pithy and powerful.
More alarming is President Trump’s response: Nothing. This, too, follows a pattern of fealty before Putin, as the president has consistently praised Putin, dismissed Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, never criticized Russian annexation of Crimea, and uttered not a word about violations of human rights and growing autocracy in Russia. Trump’s embrace of Putin, despite the clear costs to U.S. national security, has tightened. But this latest moment of indifference — silence about the killing of American soldiers — marks a new low. […]
Equally disturbing, Trump’s alibi for his lack of a response to the apparent Russian-ordered contract killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan is incompetence. The Washington Post Fact Checker staff has documented more than 19,000 falsehoods uttered by Trump as of June. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Trump was not orally briefed about this intelligence. That in itself is a damning indictment of the president and his national security team. National security adviser Robert O’Brien receives the Presidential Daily Brief, as do other senior national security officials. Why did none of them tell Trump about this intelligence since the White House learned of it last year, especially before he called Putin a half-dozen times, invited him back to the Group of Seven or announced American troop reductions in Germany? During my five years in the Obama administration, the president reviewed relevant intelligence before calling any head of state or undertaking any major foreign policy decision. That process does not appear to be functioning in the Trump administration. […]
But even if Trump just learned about the bounties, he has still not said what he will do about them. Instead, he has denounced the reporting on this intelligence as “Just another HOAX,” again defending Putin instead of siding with U.S. intelligence officials and our soldiers. It’s no wonder Putin thought he could order the killing of American soldiers and face no serious consequences.
What a cast of characters. The KGB assassin who rose to become dictator of Russia and one of the world’s richest men and the trust fund baby, game show host, who improbably and impossibly became the leader of the free world — with the KGB assassin’s help. There is no telling what Putin might demand of Trump. Ask him to drag us out of NATO? Ask him to turn on one or more of our allies? Ask him to turn a blind eye to the annexing of yet another territory — maybe the arctic? Don’t put anything past Vladimir Putin. He wants to rule the entire world, and it goes without saying the stupidity and cowardice of Trump is bottomless. As long as Putin treats Trump like a big shot, he’ll have no problems making inroads. Putin hates us. He wants to eliminate us and our way of life. And Trump is too stupid to see it — or to care.
McFaul sums the situation up succinctly. I believe every word he says. And people wonder how much more damage tRump can do before his “reign” is over. With Putin’s direction, most likely the answer is aot.
The answer is what? A lot? I guess we’re going to have to depend on patriots in the White House to stonewall Trump between November and January.
My biggest fear is that Putin has ordered (and Trump has of course meekly complied) Trump to hire a couple of people. One is an aide who copies every PDB and other classified stuff Putin would like to have and passes it over to a contact from the Russian embassy. The other would be an “IT” person who is really doing the same thing with everything in the NSC’s computers.
I have to assume that there are more safeguards in place than that. If not, if what you’re saying could happen that easily, then we need to bend over and kiss our asses goodbye right now.
With the written PDB modern technology that you or anyone can acquire for a song makes it easy enough to make your blood run cold. The partial saving grace is that Trump long ago proved he’s intolerant of what any other President would consider a proper PDB – he wants something that’s only a few pages and preferably less than that. That limits what Trump could pass along. Also, since there are professionals in the process in some instances they can do a write up that could either provide misdirection to Putin, set HIM up for future intel ops or even a bit of disinformation since Trump isn’t bright enough nor has he ever paid enough attention to realize something like that could be happening. Still, at least some real and truly sensitive classified information would make it though. As for the IT part it would be more difficult as access to those servers is both classified and closely monitored. Of course, there are ways to erase one’s tracks but again the intel agencies have some pretty sophisticated resources to draw upon and someone might think they’ve covered their tracks but not actually done so. It’s one helluva game of cat & mouse, but again since the whole system of security clearances at some point relies on someone having been vetted well enough to have trust placed in them then the human factor of trust, or lack thereof comes into play. Putin spent years, as in ten or more (perhaps more than that even) laying groundwork just in case an opportunity like Trump came along. I think Putin has known damn well that it would take some serious doing to take full advantage, and that’s why there was a systematic purging of people especially at the FBI & DOJ who were masters at nailing Russian spies and ops. How much of the slack has been taken up by those left behind (and at other agenices where purges were less high profile) is the question. I’m sure there are those who have tried to step in but when you have political hacks dumping truckloads of shit on you from above the task is that much more difficult.
Hopefully, should Biden win we won’t even have to wait for the inauguration for career professionals to be coming forward in droves to report what they’ve seen, as well as things they have actually seen but have good reason to suspect have taken place. We might never know the full extent because as I alluded to earlier sometimes disinformation campaigns can be mounted. Well run, tidbits can even be leaked to make a former KGB officer like Putin question the accuracy of much of what Trump gave him so some folks who belong rotting in jail for the rest of their lives might wind up being free for a long time.
Hannity probably has one. Or someone else at Fox. (OANN is already owned by Putin.)
Trump is controlled by Putin as Pompeo and Pence are the chief enablers of trump along with Moscow Mitch and trumps attorney general bill Barr.