Whose Team Is He On?

President Donald Trump meets with Russian Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, in the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. At right is Russian Ambassador to USA Sergei Kislyak. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed Vladimir Putin's top diplomat to the White House for Trump’s highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since he took office in January. (Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, next to Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. Trump on Wednesday... U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, next to Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. Trump on Wednesday welcomed Vladimir Putin's top diplomat to the White House for Trump's highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since he took office in January. (Russian Foreign Ministry Photo via AP) MORE LESS
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I noted yesterday (sub req) that I think that even if Trump had or has come to hate Russia and Vladimir Putin he must know he can’t cross them now because of the compromising information they could easily use against him.

Here’s something else that needs to be flagged.

Yesterday news broke that President Trump had insisted his CIA Director Mike Pompeo meet with a former US intelligence analyst turned conspiracy theorist who says his independent analysis shows that the entirety of Russian interference in the 2016 election is a hoax. The hacking of the DNC was actually an inside job.

I follow Russian diplomatic Twitter and this morning I saw this. Lavrov is Russia’s longtime foreign minister. He’s the guy who met President Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year.

In Trump’s semi-defense, this isn’t the only place you can hear this idea. The guy Trump made Pompeo meet with, Bill Binney, has frequently appeared on Fox News. But Russian bots and the Russian Foreign Minister is actively pushing precisely the same theory of what happened last year.

These actions aren’t inconsequential or merely retrospective. Russian efforts to tamper in US elections and sow division in American society continue apace. Repeatedly insisting to the people charged with preventing further intrusions that the first intrusion never happened can only be viewed as active complicity in future attacks. Sound alarmist? Sure. But think about it. If you keep telling the security guard that the break in the night before never happened and that they should just go home, what would you call that? Why he is doing this I can’t say. But what he is doing is demonstrably and on its face active assistance of future attacks. There’s no other way to put it.

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