President Donald Trump defended Russia over claims of interference in the 2016 elections, such his position set President under fire. Unbelievable but Trump contradicted US intelligence agencies, saying Russia had no reason to meddle, BBC reported.
The US and Russian presidents held nearly two hours of closed-door talks in the Finnish capital Helsinki on Monday. The summit was one of the most anticipated events in the relations of the US and Russia and when Mr Trump defended Russia, House Speaker Paul Ryan, had to say President must see that “Russia is not our ally”. Another Rep Senator John McCain said Helsinki summit was definitely a “disgraceful performance”.
President Putin denied the interference claim but the most interesting moment of the summit’s day was a news conference. President Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to allegations of meddling in the election.
“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,”
Trump replied and blamed poor Russian-American relations rather than Russian actions while President Putin offered to allow US investigators to visit Russia to question the officers.
The US reaction on Trump’s defending Putin
In 2016, the US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the US election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.
Mr Trump later backtracked, tweeting that he had “great confidence in my intelligence people”. Despite such a confidence, President confessed he also recognizes that in order to build a brighter future, we cannot exclusively focus on the past.
“As the world’s two largest nuclear powers, we must get along!”
Mr Trump concluded.
Such a surprising POTUS’ position made Mr Ryan react immediately with the strongly-worded statement:
“There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals.”
Rep Senators McCain and Lindsey Graham supported Mr Ryan, saying that there was no prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant, while the ex-director of CIA John Brennan said President Trump’s news conference “was nothing short of treasonous”.
“Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”
he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Vice-President Mike Pence, in a speech at the US Department of Commerce, defended the summit and praised President Trump.
