There’s a reason why we have written agreements.
It’s hard to believe that it has not yet been a week since President Donald Trump shared a stage with Russian President Vladimir Putin to give the press a taste of what they had discussed behind closed doors in their Helsinki meeting — and, since then, little has been revealed.
In less than an hour, President Trump heaped praise on Putin, said he had no reason to doubt that Russia had not interfered with the 2016 presidential elections (which counters U. S. intelligence reports), seemed to indicate a willingness to let Russia in on the investigation of said interference, and blamed everything on Hillary Clinton’s servers and e-mails.
And that was just what he said in front of reporters on Monday. Since then, there has been a frenzy of statements and clarifications. For instance, the president said he didn’t see any reason why Russia would be responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee’s servers, but later claimed he meant he didn’t see any reason why Russia wouldn’t be responsible.
The weird use of the double negative aside, this largely ignores the other times in the presser that the president let Putin and Russia off the hook.
But what’s troubling everyone — including the president’s own advisers — is what happened during the 2.5-hour meeting with Putin, in which the leaders were accompanied only by their interpreters. Especially after Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told journalists back home on Wednesday that “important verbal agreements” had been reached.
The Washington Post reports:
There’s also a lot of concern over reports that President Trump is actually considering offering up the former U. S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul (among other U. S. citizens), for questioning to Russian authorities. White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not rule this out on Wednesday, but moments later, State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the notion “absolutely absurd.”
(The White House seemed to change course on that by Thursday, but then, it’s only Thursday and things could change yet again).
