Trump Sides With Putin Over Own Intelligence Agencies At Helsinki, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That A U.S. President Might Reflexively Take The U.S. Side

The Filing

HELSINKI. Standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin before the assembled press of two nations, President Donald J. Trump on Monday declined to endorse the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, resolving a long-standing concern that an American president might reflexively believe the American government over the foreign adversary it had just finished accusing.

Asked directly whether he held Russia responsible, the President weighed the assessment of the entire U.S. intelligence community against the personal assurance of the man seated next to him and found the contest closer than expected. "President Putin says it's not Russia," Trump explained. "I don't see any reason why it would be." The remark, delivered three days after federal prosecutors indicted twelve Russian intelligence officers for that very interference, settled the matter for everyone present except the United States.

The two leaders had met privately for more than two hours beforehand, accompanied only by interpreters, an arrangement that left the sole American record of the conversation in the custody of the one person in the room not employed by the United States. Administration officials later described the meeting as productive, though they were unable to specify productive of what.

Reaction in Washington was swift and, for once, bipartisan, as lawmakers from both parties competed to describe the performance in terms ordinarily reserved for surrenders. A source within the administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, characterized the internal mood as "calm," adding that the President felt the trip had gone extremely well and that, by all available indications, so did Moscow.

The following day, confronted with the gap between what he had said and what his aides wished he had said, the President clarified that he had meant to say "wouldn't" rather than "would," a one-letter correction that left the sentence's meaning, like the U.S. and Russia relationship, entirely up to interpretation.

At press time, the President had returned to Washington having secured no concessions, signed no agreements, and released no readout, but reported that he and President Putin had developed a tremendous relationship, which was true.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who received two hours of flattering one-on-one attention from a foreign leader and a public denial that the campaign he won had been helped.
§Vladimir Putin, who stood as a co-equal beside an American president and watched that president publicly doubt his own government on the Kremlin's behalf.
§The Russian Federation, which obtained the propaganda image of a generation at the cost of a single press conference and no policy concessions whatsoever.
§Russian state media, handed footage of a sitting U.S. president siding with Moscow over Washington that required no editing to be useful.
§The Kremlin's interpreters, who became the most authoritative surviving witnesses to a private conversation between the leaders of two nuclear powers.
§Anti-NATO and authoritarian actors abroad, who learned that the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies can be neutralized by standing close to the President and disagreeing politely.

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