Standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference on Monday, US President Donald Trump indicated that he believes Russia over the US intelligence community when it comes to the Kremlin's meddling in the 2016 election.
Putin also pushed another frequent talking point, saying that some of the Russians who have been indicted by the special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation were not part of the Russian state.
However, the US intelligence community has long believed that the Kremlin often uses proxies and outside groups to do its bidding in order to maintain plausible deniability.
Trump said Putin "offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer."
When Putin explained his offer during the press conference, he also accused U.S. officials of committing crimes against Russia and said his government would want to question them in return.
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The US State Department on Friday announced it would cut $200m in aid for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, apparently at the direction of US President Donald Trump.
On Saturday, the Israel Television News Company reported that Trump intends to demand the number of Palestinians recognised as refugees by 90 percent.
It’s obvious that Bibi is now dictating US foreign policy..unfortunately, it’s neither good for the US, nor Israel..also highlights the problem with intertwining politics and natsec!!!
Earlier this month it was reported that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, had put pressure on Jordan to strip the refugee status of more than two million registered Palestinians residing there.
Following that report, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner's move was part of a broader effort by him and the Trump administration to render UNRWA irrelevant and halt its work.
In January, the US announced it would withhold $65m of $125m that it had planned to send to UNRWA, which is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN states, including those from the United States.
That is the problem with personalizing the war against groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State: We inflate our enemies into larger-than-life villains who reflect our fears rather than their own capabilities.
We did it with Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and now we are doing it with Ibrahim al-Asiri.
By talking about them as masterminds with irreplaceable skillsets, the United States projects the mistaken impression that if they could only be killed, the terrorist threat would be greatly reduced.
The US provides aerial targeting assistance to the coalition, for Pete’s sake, along with intelligence sharing and mid-flight aerial refueling for coalition aircraft.
And of course, the US supplies (with the UK) the bulk of the coalition’s weapons. Lots of them. Hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth.
“You’re going to see some increase in prices. The supply chain is going to become more costly and you’ll pay more in the short term, but here’s the way I look at China: Pay now or pay later.”
The problem for Brussels is that no one can tell for sure whether the U.S. president will stick to that plan described by Senator Graham.
Brussels reckons that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer supports the approach, but one diplomat conceded “no one knows” whether Trump will stick to the plan.