Trump officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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“And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it’s a mess”.
“If you are the president of an embattled Ukraine under pressure from Russian Federation you could not possibly see this as good news, because in the Ukraine the view is that its salvation lies in a robust North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”, says Rajan Menon, author of “Ukraine in Conflict: The Unwinding of the Cold War Post-Cold War Order” and professor of political science at The City College of NY.
However, the short-term optics do show reasons for why Putin would prefer Trump as a presidential candidate over another member of the Republican party – or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Breaking a tradition dating to Richard Nixon, he says he won’t make those documents public because he is being audited by the IRS.
The statement triggered some damage control from the Trump campaign and his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as well as disapproval on both sides of the party line.
Leo Taddeo, chief security officer at Cryptzone who previously oversaw FBI cyber investigations in NY, said he believed CrowdStrike was correct in blaming Russian Federation.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos replied, ‘Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?’ Trump shot back: ‘OK.
Trump blows off his shout-out to Russian hackers as “sarcasm”. “I have no relationship with Putin”, Trump said. “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room”, Trump bragged upon returning home.
Yet Democrats are not the only ones to recoil at Trump’s remarks. But imagine the outrage – including from the Trump camp – if she ever had done so.
He wrote in the “Art of the Deal” in 1987 that he visited Moscow for the first time that year to explore building a hotel in partnership with the then-Soviet government.
US antipathy to foreign individuals, let alone foreign countries, trying to influence American elections runs so deep that the law prohibits “foreign nationals” (non-citizens who don’t hold green cards) from donating to campaigns or even promising to donate. He has pleaded not guilty and faces trial later this year.
In a 2007 deposition, Bayrock executive Felix Sater (a Russian immigrant) testified he had located Russian investors for the project, as well as a site, a shuttered pencil factory named for USA communists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
U.S. Senator, Bob Menendez, says the comments Trump made yesterday about Russian Federation exposing Hillary Clinton’s emails are an act of treason. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment….”
Indeed, in 2013, he inked another preliminary deal to build in Moscow, this time in partnership with Agalarov, who had hosted the pageant. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, managed an investment fund for a Russian aluminum magnate with close ties to Putin. His praise of Vladimir Putin’s leadership skills is alarming. While Ukraine is not part of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, there has been ongoing debate within member nations about arming the country against Russian Federation. In 2015, Flynn attended a dinner honoring the Kremlin-aligned English language media company RT, where he sat near Putin.
Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The head of a think tank that advises the Kremlin, Fyodor Lukyanov, said Putin is under no illusion that Erdogan would pull the plug on decades of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation membership, but the rising anti-Americanism in Turkey is providing an opportunity to turn what had been a tense relationship into a deep strategic partnership.
He also refused to call on Putin to stay out of the election, “I’m not going to tell Putin what to do”. “I’ve never spoken to him”.
Trump said Wednesday the United States needed better ties with Russian Federation to fight ISIS: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with people, wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along, as an example, with Russian Federation?”
Stephanopoulos also pressed Trump on changes to the Republican platform removing calls for the provision of lethal weapons so the people of Ukraine can defend themselves, which Trump said he had nothing to do with. Putin can’t be trusted and he must be told to butt out of the US presidential contest.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko). Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 27, 2016 during a reception for the Russia’s Olympics team.
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“Given that combination of factors”, said Comey, “we assess that it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account”.
