It is no secret that there has been reasonable suspicion from all of our top intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA) that Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin's men had a hand in giving Donald Trump the victory in the 2016 election. Thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies were indicted in February by a grand jury for alleged interference in the election, though the Justice Department concluded that there was no correlation between the indictments and election meddling.
Yet.
Two weeks ago on Friday, Robert Mueller's team handed indictments to 12 Russian Intelligence officers on allegations of hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton's campaign during the 2016 election.
According to Trump, this did not happen. In fact, he caved spectacularly to Putin when he met with the Russian dictator at the Helsinki summit last Monday. When questioned about the Justice Department, FBI, and CIA's findings that there was no doubt that Russia hacked our election in 2016, he said that "it could not have been Russia."
#45 didn't exactly smooth tensions over the next 24 hours, with Democrats and even some of his loyal Republicans in Congress such as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell fighting back saying that Europe shares more of our values than does Russia. Finally, Trump, from a prepared script, accepted the intelligence community's findings, but "there is a whole lot of people out there."
Trump, it might be too little too late for you to simply walk back your comments like you've done in the past like with Charlottesville. You had the opportunity to take Putin to task, but you failed miserably. Simply walking back your remarks after you've basically been reprimanded is nothing short of soft pandering. Soft pandering that is allowing you to keep your interests above the interests of the American people.
Chris Wallace, on your favorite network, was harder and asked more pointed questions towards Putin than you did during your meeting with him. Let that sink in. The Fox News Sunday host handed him the indictments of the 12 men involved in the hacking of our election.
https://youtu.be/gV9gdKBx5oo
