Here's where the Republican Patriots are, Brennan: "That's how a press conference sounds when an Asset stands next to his Handler," former RNC Chairman Michael Steele tweeted.
Representative Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president, said on Twitter: "As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I am deeply troubled by President Trump's defense of Putin against the intelligence agencies of the U.S. & his suggestion of moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia. Russia poses a grave threat to our national security."
All these were reactions to Trump expressing skepticism about the U.S. indictment on Friday of 12 Russian intelligence agents for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election while he was standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the press conference following their summit meeting in Helsinki.
"I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia, Trump said. "I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today."
The indictments, which are only unproven accusations, formally accused 12 members of the GRU, Russian military intelligence, of stealing Democratic Party emails in a hacking operation and giving the materials to WikiLeaks to publish in order to damage the candidacy of Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. The indictments were announced on Friday, three days before the summit, with the clear intention of getting Trump to cancel it. He ignored cries from the media and Congress to do so.
Over the weekend Michael Smerconish on CNN actually said the indictments proved that Russia had committed a "terrorist attack" against the United States. This is in line with many pundits who are comparing this indictment, that will most likely never produce any evidence, to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. The danger inherent in that thinking is clear.
Putin said the allegations are "utter nonsense, just like [Trump] recently mentioned." He added: "The final conclusion in this kind of dispute can only be delivered by a trial, by the court. Not by the executive, by the law enforcement." He could have added not by the media.
Trump reasonably questioned why the FBI never examined the computer servers of the Democratic National Committee to see whether there was a hack and who may have done it. Instead a private company, CrowdStrike, hired by the Democratic Party studied the server and within a day blamed Russia on very dubious grounds.
"Why haven't they taken the server?" Trump asked. "Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know, where is the server and what is the server saying?"
But being a poor communicator, Trump then mentioned Clinton's missing emails, allowing the media to conflate the two different servers, and be easily dismissed as Gergen did.
At the press conference, Putin offered to allow American investigators from the team of special counsel Robert Mueller, who put the indictment together, to travel to Russia and take part in interviews with the 12 accused Russian agents. He also offered to set up a joint cyber-security group to examine the evidence and asked that in return Russia be allowed to question persons of interest to Moscow in the United States.
"Let's discuss the specific issues and not use the Russia and U.S. relationship as a loose change for this internal political struggle," Putin said.
On CNN, Christiane Amanpour called Putin's clear offer "obfuscation."
Even if Trump agreed to this reasonable proposal it seems highly unlikely that his Justice Department will go along with it. Examination of whatever evidence they have to back up the indictment is not what the DOJ is after. As I wrote about the indictments in detail on Friday:
"The extremely remote possibility of convictions were not what Mueller was apparently after, but rather the public perception of Russia's guilt resulting from fevered media coverage of what are after all only accusations, presented as though it is established fact. Once that impression is settled into the public consciousness, Mueller's mission would appear to be accomplished."
Still No "Collusion"
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