Day 296: Trump Trashes U.S. Intelligence, Believes Putin on Election Meddling

While in Vietnam, Donald Trump has casually chatted with Russian President Vladimir Putin a number of times. Apparently, that has been enough to convince Trump that the Russians did nothing to meddle in the 2016 election.

“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew from Da Nang to Hanoi in Vietnam. Trump spoke to Putin three times on the sidelines of summit here, where the Russia meddling issue arose.

“Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’” Trump said. “And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

Speaking about the former heads of the DNI, CIA and FBI fiercely disagreeing with that assessment, Trump said:

“I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks,” Trump said. “So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker. So you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with them.”

But the man Trump picked to lead the CIA, Mike Pompeo, stood by US intelligence findings in a statement issued later Saturday, saying the “assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed.”

You’re reading that right: Trump believes the Russian leader simply because he denies something instead of the U.S. intelligence agencies who have forensically studied the issue for a year.

296 days in, 1166 to go

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