U.S. President Donald Trump has faced continued intense criticism for his capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader personally directed officials with his government to meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections, but even still, standing next to him in Finland recently, Trump claimed to see no reason to believe Russia had interfered.
Trump eventually sought to retract that specific statement, but not before the criticism piled up. The White House has now caved under the weight of that criticism and pushed a Trump-Putin summit originally planned for the U.S. later this year off to 2019. The summit would be the second convened solely for the purpose of Trump and Putin meeting after the recent Finland debacle.
Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton blamed the weight of the investigation into Russian election interference for the delay.
He said:
‘The president believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.’
Bolton’s statement purportedly relaying the president’s own sentiment undercuts his attempt at retracting his denial of Russian election meddling offered while standing next to Putin in Helinski.
Trump has, however, undercut that same attempted retraction through other means as well. This past Sunday, for instance, he tweeted that the Russia scandal was a “big hoax,” just days after reading a statement to reporters asserting his support for the United States’ intelligence community and their conclusion that Russia had interfered in the election.
Even at the time of the initial retraction, while making a show of acknowledging Russian interference, Trump quipped that it could be some other interest behind the hacking of the Democrats’ emails, despite the fact that no resounding evidence has emerged of any other interest having anything major to do with this. It was Russia, and even more specifically, it was individuals including the twelve Russian intelligence officers indicted recently by Special Counsel for the Russia investigation Robert Mueller.
Mueller isn’t just going it alone and pursuing whatever he likes, made up or not. He is operating as a part of web of investigators and authorities who serve as checks on and supports for each other. He’s not just indicting whoever he wants; his team is uncovering actual, legitimate, U.S. justice system-verified crimes that are being prosecuted.
Trump is still hanging onto an attempt at a connection with Putin anyway, even if the feeling isn’t quite mutual. On Tuesday, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ishakov said he feels it “right to wait for the dust to settle before having a businesslike discussion of all issues.”
In the absence of a Trump-Putin meeting later this year in D.C., the two leaders’ in-person interactions will likely be relegated to a G20 summit they’re both expected to attend in Argentina in November.
Bolton suggested that the Russia investigation would conclude sometime before next year, but the Trump administration has been wrong in their estimates of the probe’s end date in the past. Mueller has made no public indication of a planned end date for his investigation.
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