Courtesy of the New York Times:
Mr. Trump suggested on Thursday that he still was not convinced that Russia was solely responsible for interference in the 2016 election, breaking with American intelligence agencies who have agreed that the effort emanated from Moscow and was directed by Mr. Putin.
“I think it was Russia, and it could have been other people in other countries,” Mr. Trump said when asked for a yes-or-no answer to the question about Russian meddling.
“Nobody really knows,” he added, arguing that American intelligence agencies had made serious mistakes in the past, including an assessment before the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. “Nobody really knows for sure.”
In part of this response Trump attempted to blame President Obama for not doing anything since he believed that Russia was behind the hackers:
“He did nothing about it. Why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA, as I understand it. It was well reported. He did nothing about it. They say he choked. I don't think he choked. I think what happens is he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and said let's not do anything about it. Had he thought the other way, he would have done something about it,” the president said.
“If he thought I was going to win, he would have done plenty about it.”
However of course that is also a lie since Obama confronted Putin, informed the public, and started the investigations into the hacking, He could not have done more since he would have been accused of interfering in the election. And Trump damn well knows it.
Trump also seemed to believe that America only has three intelligence agencies, and stated that newspapers had to retract or correct stories stating that there were 17.
Of course that is also untrue.
So now tomorrow Trump has a meeting with Vladimir Putin and he is clearly still refusing to assign any blame to him for hacking the 2016 election.
The chances he will bring it up to Putin are essentially zero at this point, and if by some miracle he actually did it would probably just to be to apologize for the fact that the American media keeps blaming him.
Source http://ift.tt/2tlACdO
Mr. Trump suggested on Thursday that he still was not convinced that Russia was solely responsible for interference in the 2016 election, breaking with American intelligence agencies who have agreed that the effort emanated from Moscow and was directed by Mr. Putin.
“I think it was Russia, and it could have been other people in other countries,” Mr. Trump said when asked for a yes-or-no answer to the question about Russian meddling.
“Nobody really knows,” he added, arguing that American intelligence agencies had made serious mistakes in the past, including an assessment before the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. “Nobody really knows for sure.”
In part of this response Trump attempted to blame President Obama for not doing anything since he believed that Russia was behind the hackers:
“He did nothing about it. Why did he do nothing about it? He was told it was Russia by the CIA, as I understand it. It was well reported. He did nothing about it. They say he choked. I don't think he choked. I think what happens is he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and said let's not do anything about it. Had he thought the other way, he would have done something about it,” the president said.
“If he thought I was going to win, he would have done plenty about it.”
However of course that is also a lie since Obama confronted Putin, informed the public, and started the investigations into the hacking, He could not have done more since he would have been accused of interfering in the election. And Trump damn well knows it.
Trump also seemed to believe that America only has three intelligence agencies, and stated that newspapers had to retract or correct stories stating that there were 17.
So now tomorrow Trump has a meeting with Vladimir Putin and he is clearly still refusing to assign any blame to him for hacking the 2016 election.
The chances he will bring it up to Putin are essentially zero at this point, and if by some miracle he actually did it would probably just to be to apologize for the fact that the American media keeps blaming him.
Source http://ift.tt/2tlACdO
