Putin has publicly yanked Trump's chain three times so far this year
Putin has a telling way of reminding Trump of exactly how long a leash he's on, and what might happen if he attempts to stray.
The first time was that meeting in the Oval office when per Putin's request Trump mugged it up and glad handed not only the Russian Secretary of State, but also Moscow's Ambassador the the United States - "spy handler" Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak was already politically radioactive at that point - and his name wasn't on the official "guest list" of those who would be attending the Presidential meeting. But as a special favor to the Russians only (the U.S. press pool was barred) an official Russian photographer was allowed to take photos inside the Oval Office. In a move that it is reported made the White House "furious", the Russians then published the photos despite reported assurances that they would not. That's how we all found out that Kislyak attended in the first place, and no one has ever seen Trump smile as broadly as he did for that photo with the Ambassador. That move was about as subtle as a horse head on the pillow.
The second time was after the G20 meeting where Trump holed up with Putin for over two hours on the sidelines. Great care was taken by the Trump team to prevent leaks of what was actually discussed and to control the messaging that came out of the meeting. Unlike the other leaders Trump did not hold a live press briefing after the summit so that he could not be questioned in real time. Instead he had Tillerson make a carefully scripted statement about how Trump strongly challenged Russian interference in our elections, and persisted in that for a length of time before they moved on to other topics without reaching any agreement. And then Putin made his own public statement whereby he pulled the rug out from under Tillerson, Trump, according to Putin, listened to Putin's denial of any Russian interference in the 2016 election, and fully accepted Putin at his word. Trump, of course, was unable to square that circle since he couldn't say that Putin lied. Like incident number one, Putin rubbed Trump's face in it.
The third time just happened and it hasn't gotten as much attention as the others so far, but it has dire implications for Trump. It involves the Russian lawyer who met with Junior and the top tier of Trump's campaign last June to discuss "damning"Russian information on Hillary Clinton. Don Jr. alleged that the Russians, through an intermediary, sought out that meeting with the Trump team which Don Jr., out of politeness and nativity one is asked to believe, didn't immediately inform the FBI about. But no, that's not what happened says
Natalia Veselnitskaya. According to her the Trump campaign solicited her to hold that meeting. Even if that is true there was no one forcing Veselnitskaya to freely offer that information to the U.S. press, which punched another hole in Trump Jr's flimsy coverup. Except this one has significant legal implications. It the Trump team asked for the meeting, rather than the other way around, it becomes much easier to prove that they were soliciting something of value from foreign nationals to use for political purposes in a U.S. election campaign - in clear violation of U.S. law.
Why? Why do the Russians keep intentionally making it harder for Donald Trump to put the Russia scandal behind him, by freely and continually offering up details that both embarrass him AND undermine the credibility of his claims that he isn't beholden to Russia? I think the answer is obvious. They are carefully timed and well placed warning shots that say; "Don't cross us, we still expect you to honor our deal regardless of the difficulties that may now entail for you. We kept our end, you keep yours, or we will not hesitate to bring you down - swiftly and unfailingly. You know full well that we have the means to."
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