Is there a legal requirement to give Trump intelligence briefings?
No. It’s a 60 year old tradition. Obama could put the kibosh on it if he wanted. As far as I know, it’s not really ongoing briefings. It’s just a one time thing to get a candidate up to speed on big issues/concerns.
No. But I think we have a moral obligation to try.
This brings up some questions regarding Trump’s hiring of Manafort. Did that decision follow some communication to the effect ‘half your $40 million dollar debt to us will be forgiven if you…’? Granted, Manafort had a reputation in the political campaign biz independent of his possible Putin/oligarch connections, but even so, it would be very interesting to see Trump’s emails (and phone records) for the days leading up to the hiring of Manafort.
Hopefully the Chinese will hack his servers and release the emails. They would probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
Thank heavens no one in public life would ever say anything so irresponsible.
If Trump isn’t a Putin patsy, can somebody construct a fictional person that would be better for Russia than Trump? He’s cozied up to him, praised him in comparison to our own president, said NATO allies can’t depend on him, supported the weakening of the EU through the British exit, and invited their hackers to steal our government correspondence. Short of giving Putin our nuclear codes, what else a fictional person do that’s as bad as what Trump’s done?
A patsy is never deliberate.
No you wouldn’t. You’d rather listen to the political hacks and warmongers on Fox News and NPR.
An expert on Russia backs up my claim stating that there is no evidence “whatsoever” that Putin wants to end the independence of the Baltic states.
Of course being good for Russia is different from being good for Putin, but your confusion says a lot about the Russophobic ideology. A candidate good for Russia, and the US, would be a free trade candidate.
Interesting read. Makes me wonder how nonchalantly a reputable paper can label someone a politically charged term like “oligarch”. I would be surprised if the charge wasn’t true, but at the same time, by what conceivable definition is Hillary Clinton not an oligarch?
50% of Americans believe Russia is attempting to influence the US Presidential elections.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/presidential-polls-trump-vs-clinton/index.html
Yeah when the media is telling them everyday that it is the case, why wouldn’t they.
Odd that Trump would allow himself to be branded like this… I thought he was a marketing and business genius.
How does she match the definition of an oligarch? She is not a wealthy business woman pulling political power from the shadows. Russian oligarchs are also Billionaires, far more rich than the Clintons.
Do you have some real reason to think the article used the label nonchalantly? You have some defense to make for Firtash or Deripaska?
Putin is Russia. You can’t separate the two. That you pretend it isn’t is indicative of your political bent.
And sure, maybe destroying the EU and disbanding NATO may also be good for Russia, but I wouldn’t cozy up to Russia at the expense of our allies. Russia’s not worth the EU, I’d rather ally myself with the likes of France and England than Russia; Trump would do the opposite, at the great cost to the US
As opposed to law enforcement agencies stating that that is very likely the case. So yeah, I’ll go with the media and law enforcement, and analysis of cui bono.
This reads like a Trump campaign ad. This ‘expert’ claims that Trump plans to defuse a ‘new cold war’ by cozying up to Putin. I find it hard to believe that Trump, who has no idea of the actual situation in Ukraine, for instance, has anything resembling a cogent plan.
That’s not exactly what the “professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton” said. He’s saying there should be a debate on the NATO mission:
[QUOTE=STEPHEN F. COHEN]
I don’t defend Trump. Trump raises questions. And instead of giving answer to the substance of the question, we denounce him as some kind of Kremlin agent. That’s bad for our politics, but still worse, given the danger we’re not addressing it.
[/QUOTE]
Now for all I know he’s an expert on Russian folk dancing but putting the scare quotes around it is pretty lame when he is a professor of Russian studies and you are ‘some random nobody on the internet’.