Trump Won’t Demand That Putin Hand Over Indicted Russians

Trump said that he might ask Putin to turn over the Russians that Mueller has indicted but that this happened under Obama and it was the DNC’s own fault that they got hacked.

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Trump said, “Well, I might. I haven’t thought of that, but I’ll be asking about it. But this was during the Obama administration. They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration. I heard that they were trying or people were trying to hack into the RNC, too, the Republican national committee, but we had much better defenses. I’ve been told that by a number of people. We have much better defenses, so they couldn’t. I think the DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked. They had bad defenses. And they were able to be hacked. But I heard they were trying to hack the Republicans, too, but, and this may be wrong, but they had much stronger defenses.”

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Trump’s claim that the DNC was hacked because their defenses weren’t strong enough is like blaming towers at the World Trade Center for falling on 9/11 because the buildings were not strong enough. It is a bit of goalpost moving that ignores that fact Russians were attacking the United States.

The Russians did not try to hack Trump’s campaign. They did try to hack Clinton’s campaign. There is no proof that the Russians were unsuccessful in hacking the RNC because of superior defenses, but what is true is that the Russians did gather data on anti-Trump Republicans like Colin Powell and Lindsey Graham. Any time that Trump says I heard, it is a tell that he is about to say something that has not been proven to be true.

Instead of demanding that the indicted Russians be turned over for prosecution, Trump said that he might ask, which is as good as a no. The Russian election crimes were not Obama’s fault. Trump is trying to blame Obama for not catching his buddies sooner. The problem is that Russian attacked the United States.

Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge it, own it, or do anything about it.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association