President Donald Trump has sent a lot of bad tweets. He’s tweeted things that aren’t true. He’s tweeted personal attacks about everyone from Hillary Clinton to Mika Brzezinski and back. He’s called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un « Little Rocket Man. » But a tweet he sent
Staggering. Stunning. Surreal.
Remember that the intelligence community — unanimously! — has concluded that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump and hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina concluded the same earlier this summer. Special counsel Robert Mueller charged a dozen Russians last week for their roles in what the charging document made clear was a broad and deep operation to influence the US presidential election.
Simply put: With the exception of a handful of Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, there is simply no one in a position to know who thinks that a) Russia didn’t meddle in the 2016 campaign and b) wasn’t trying to help Trump and hurt Clinton.
But wait, there’s more! Last week, Dan Coats, the Trump administration’s Director of National Intelligence, was blunt in his assessment of Russia’s ongoing assault on the United States’ infrastructure. « The warning signs are there, » Coats said in a speech at the Hudson Institute. « The system is blinking. It is why I believe we are at a critical point. Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack. »
And yet, amid all of that — not to mention Russia’s alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and its invasion and annexation of Crimea — the President of the United States saw fit to turn the blame for the bad relationship between the two countries on the US.
