Trump Stands Beside Putin In Helsinki And Sides With Him Over American Intelligence Agencies, Resolves Long-Standing Concern That Sitting Presidents Were Defending The U.S. From Russia In Public

The Filing

HELSINKI. Standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Presidential Palace on Monday, President Trump publicly accepted Putin's denial that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, identifying the strong personal assurance as a fully adequate substitute for the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community, sworn testimony from the Director of National Intelligence Trump himself appointed, and a 29-page indictment of twelve named Russian military intelligence officers issued by Trump's own Justice Department three days earlier.

"My people came to me, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be," Trump told reporters, resolving a long-standing American concern that a sitting U.S. president might appear in a foreign capital and treat the head of a hostile intelligence service as a more reliable narrator than his own government. Sources within the administration confirmed Tuesday that the President had carefully weighed competing accounts and arrived at the determination that the man indicted alongside no co-conspirators was telling the truth, while seventeen intelligence agencies of the country he leads were not.

The press conference, which followed a two-hour one-on-one meeting attended by no American notetaker, was widely characterized in U.S. media as an embarrassing capitulation. By Tuesday afternoon, Trump had clarified that he had meant to say "wouldn't" rather than "would" in his original remark, a single-letter revision that aides explained had not been audible to the room or microphone but had been present in his mind all along.

The summit produced no joint statement, no policy concessions from the Russian side, and no commitments regarding ongoing election interference. It did, however, produce a public floating by President Putin of the idea that Russian investigators be permitted to question former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul on Russian soil, a proposal the White House described as an "incredible offer" before retracting the description several days later under bipartisan congressional outcry.

Administration officials noted afterward that any concerns raised about the President's posture had been addressed in full by the President's subsequent assertion that the summit had gone very well.

At press time, the President was insisting that the only people troubled by the appearance were haters, fools, and the Director of National Intelligence.

Who Benefits

§Donald Trump personally, who cemented his political identity as a leader unbound by, and unbothered by, the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies, while consolidating the affection of a base that has come to treat his alignment with Putin as a feature rather than a bug.
§The Trump Organization, whose long-running interest in branded development inside Russia, including the unsigned Trump Tower Moscow project pursued during the 2016 campaign, was not damaged by the President's public deference to the Russian head of state.
§Vladimir Putin, who received a televised endorsement from the President of the United States that his country's documented attack on American democracy had not occurred, providing a domestic and international propaganda windfall at no cost.
§The Russian Federation, which secured a visible split between an American President and his own intelligence community, weakening the credibility of any future U.S. attribution of cyberattacks, disinformation, or election interference.
§Russian military intelligence (GRU), whose twelve officers, indicted by name three days earlier by the U.S. Justice Department for hacking the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign, were effectively brushed aside on foreign soil by the President of the country indicting them.
§Authoritarian governments worldwide, who received a vivid demonstration that the United States under its current leadership would prefer the company and the public word of strongmen to the conclusions of its own career officials.

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