Here is part of an excellent analysis by Stephen Collinson, of CNN, on June 30, 2020, at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/30/politics/donald-trump-russia-taliban-phone-calls/index.html regarding:
"New revelations stir old questions about Trump and Russia"
Reports that a Russian military intelligence agency [the GRU] put a bounty on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan launched the President's team into a new cycle of confusion, apparent half-truths and contradictions as a fresh storm raged over Trump's mysterious deference to Moscow and its strongman leader, President Vladimir Putin.
Conflicting messages from the President and his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, only deepened the intrigue about what is really going on.
None of what they are saying clears up an episode that comes as new reporting for CNN from veteran Washington reporter Carl Bernstein lifts the lid on Trump's desperate flattery of Putin, his ignorance of basic world events, the way he was manipulated by smarter world leaders and his "near-sadistic" -- according to one source -- behavior toward female world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Bernstein's story, and Trump's unfathomable relationship with Russia -- a nation with which he had past business relationships and which he denies interfered in the 2016 US election -- both boil down to the same foreboding question about Trump's presidency: Does he act in America's interests or his own?
Such
uncertainty is underpinned by Trump's foreign policy -- whether it involves
feuding with NATO or calling on the G7 to readmit Russia -- which often seems
to reward Moscow's interests. It's also offering an opening to Democrats, who
warn that the commander in chief is either incompetent or unfit for office,
only four months from a general election in which Trump is trailing Democrat
Joe Biden in recent polling.
Each time there's a damaging story on the issue, he makes exactly the same move -- dumping on the US intelligence that lies behind it. It was a similar story when the President used a Helsinki summit with Putin to throw US intelligence agencies under the bus over their assessments that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help him win.
...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wondered aloud in an interview with CNN why Trump was not briefed on the grave threats to US troops.
"If he was not briefed [by US Intelligence], why would he not be briefed?" Pelosi told CNN's Jake Tapper.
"Were they afraid to approach him on the subject of Russia?" Pelosi said. "Were they concerned if they did tell him that he would tell Putin? So there's a lot that remains out there."..."
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MUCH MORE TO STORY HERE
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Separately you can read AUSTRALIANS HAVEN’T GIVEN UP ON THE UNITED STATES — YET
