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Bob Woodward’s new book quotes Dan Coats as saying that the Kremlin “has something on Trump.” But there are other explanations for the influence.
Usually not a man of soft words: Donald Trump often likes Vladimir Putin’s politics.
Photo: Keystone
Donald Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin and the submission of the US president to his Russian counterpart have sparked repeated speculation since the 2016 presidential election. One reason for this was Trump’s bizarre meeting with Putin in Helsinki in the summer of 2018. Contrary to the findings of the US secret services, Trump sided with the Russians at the time, saying that Putin had credibly denied Russian interference in the 2016 US election campaign.
The president also likes to soften other things, which is drawing harsh criticism of the Kremlin in Berlin, London and Paris. Star journalist Bob Woodward’s Trump book has now fueled this speculation again. The only explanation for Trump’s behavior is that Putin “has something on Trump,” Woodward quotes Dan Coats, who was Trump’s intelligence coordinator and was the supervisor of all US intelligence services. From 2017 to 2019. Coats can’t provide any evidence to support his suspicions, but suspicion apparently gnawed at him during his tenure.
United States campaign manager serving the secret service
The president has consistently denied such accusations and has condemned all investigations into the matter as “fraud” or “political witch hunts.” However, many questions about Trump’s relationship with Russia remained unanswered, both in Russia’s special investigator Robert Mueller’s report and in the lengthy final report of a multi-year investigation by the secret services committee in the US Senate. U.S.
In particular, the Senate report signed by Republicans and Democrats sparked the belief that there was nothing right to do. For example, the Senate report noted that Paul Manafort, who led Trump’s election campaign until his dismissal in 2016, worked closely with an employee of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. According to the Senate report, Manafort gave the Russian valuable inside information on Trump’s election campaign. To absolve the president of such suspicions, a thorough “counterintelligence” investigation by the responsible FBI counterintelligence department would have been necessary. This, however, was secretly banned to the FBI by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as revealed in a new book by New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt.
Meanwhile, President and Attorney General William Barr hopes that prosecutor John Durham’s special investigation will soon shed light on the origins of the Russia investigation and describe Trump as a victim of the Obama administration and the machinations of the FBI. Barr has asked Durham for clarification and is working on a report that could, if possible, exonerate Trump before the election.
The president is a “useful idiot” to Putin because he has taken the Russians as an example, says a former lieutenant colonel.
Opponents of the justice minister suspect that Durham is under enormous pressure to launder the president. These fears were reinforced after the abrupt departure of Durham senior employee Nora Dannehy last week. Apparently, the renowned lawyer resigned her position because she did not want to give in to political pressure.
But as much as Bob Woodward’s book has reignited the discussion about Donald Trump’s affinity for Vladimir Putin, alternative explanations for the president’s behavior assume neither a plot nor a blackmail of Trump by the Kremlin. For example, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen believes the president sought proximity to Moscow in 2016 because he expected a lucrative deal with the Kremlin if he lost the election.
Other explanations point to Trump’s admiration for autocrats and “strong men.” For Putin, the president is a “useful idiot” because he has taken the Russians as an example, says former Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman in an interview with “The Atlantic” magazine. As a member of Trump’s National Security Council, the whistleblower brought up the Ukraine issue and resigned from military service after being denied a due promotion.
A real light on Donald Trump’s relationship with Moscow could perhaps shed light on his financial records and tax assessments. However, so far the president has prevented it by all means.
