{"id":165,"date":"2018-02-17T19:35:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-18T00:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2018-03-01T12:26:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:26:08","slug":"trumps-conspicuous-silence-leaves-a-struggle-against-russia-without-a-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Conspicuous Silence Leaves a Struggle Against Russia Without a Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0PETER BAKER\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/span>

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President Trump in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday. Mr. Trump has made little, if any public, effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow for its electoral intrusion or to defend democratic institutions against continued disruption.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Al Drago for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 After more than a dozen Russians and three companies were\u00a0indicted on Friday for interfering<\/a>\u00a0in the 2016 elections, President Trump\u2019s first reaction was to claim personal vindication: \u201cThe Trump campaign did nothing wrong \u2014 no collusion!\u201d\u00a0he wrote on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He voiced no concern that a foreign power had been trying for nearly four years to upend American democracy, much less resolve to stop it from continuing to do so this year.<\/p>\n

The indictment secured by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, underscored the broader conclusion by the American government that\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00a0is engaged in a virtual war against the United States through 21st-century tools of disinformation and propaganda, a conclusion shared by the president\u2019s own senior advisers and intelligence chiefs. But it is a war being fought on the American side without a commander in chief.<\/p>\n

In 13 months in office, Mr. Trump has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow for its intrusion or to defend democratic institutions against continued disruption. His administration has at times called out Russia or taken action, and even Mr. Trump\u2019s national security adviser, speaking in Germany on Saturday, called evidence of Russian meddling \u201cincontrovertible.\u201d But the administration has been left to respond without the president\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Trump has spoken about President Vladimir V. Putin in generally flattering or friendly terms, a stance that has raised suspicions about why he is going easy on him.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Maxim Shipenkov\/European Pressphoto Agency<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt is astonishing to me that a president of the United States would take this so lightly or see it purely through the prism of domestic partisanship,\u201d said Daniel Fried, a career diplomat under presidents of both parties who is now at the Atlantic Council. He said it invariably raised questions about whether Mr. Trump had something to hide. \u201cI have no evidence that he\u2019s deliberately pulling his punches because he has to, but I can\u2019t dismiss it. No president has raised those kinds of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than condemn Russia for its actions, Mr. Trump in the past has said he accepts the denial offered by President\u00a0Vladimir V. Putin<\/a>. Mr. Trump\u00a0has not imposed new sanctions<\/a>\u00a0called for in a law passed by Congress last year to retaliate for the attack on America\u2019s political system, or teamed up with European leaders to counter a common threat. He has not led a concerted effort to harden election systems in the United States with midterm congressional elections on the horizon, or pressed lawmakers to pass legislation addressing the situation.<\/p>\n

Michael A. McFaul, an ambassador to Moscow under President Barack\u00a0Obama<\/a>, called Mr. Trump\u2019s reaction to the indictments \u201cshockingly weak\u201d and said he should instead have criticized Mr. Putin for violating American sovereignty or even announced plans to punish Moscow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cInstead, he just focused on his own campaign,\u201d Mr. McFaul said. \u201cAmerica was attacked, and our commander in chief said nothing in response. He looks weak, not only in Moscow but throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s silence has not necessarily stopped lower levels of his administration from responding to Russian actions, sometimes going further than Mr. Obama, who was also criticized for not doing enough to counter Moscow\u2019s threat. The Trump administration has decided to\u00a0send weapons<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0so it can defend itself against Russian intervention, and recently\u00a0imposed sanctions<\/a>\u00a0on more human rights violators. After Russia ordered the American Embassy in Moscow to\u00a0shed most of its staff<\/a>, the administration\u00a0responded by ordering Russia<\/a>\u00a0to close its consulate in San Francisco and diplomatic annexes in New York and Washington.<\/p>\n

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GRAPHIC<\/h3>\n

The Propaganda Tools Used by Russians to Influence the 2016 Election<\/h2>\n

Thirteen Russian nationals have been charged with illegally trying to disrupt the American political process through inflammatory social media posts and organized political rallies.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>

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Likewise, in just the past few days, the Trump administration formally\u00a0blamed Russia<\/a>\u00a0for an expansive cyberattack last year called NotPetya and threatened unspecified \u201cinternational consequences.\u201d The nation\u2019s intelligence agency directors, including those appointed by Mr. Trump,\u00a0unanimously warned<\/a>\u00a0in congressional testimony that Russia was already meddling in this year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s own aides readily acknowledge the reality that he does not. Besides describing Russian interference as undeniable on Saturday, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said Mr. Mueller\u2019s charges made clear that Russia had been engaged in a \u201csophisticated form of espionage\u201d against the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the F.B.I. indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain,\u201d\u00a0he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Late Saturday night, however, Mr. Trump,\u00a0contradicted General McMaster<\/a>, writing on Twitter shortly before midnight that his aide \u201cforgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia\u201d and the Democrats.<\/p>\n

In a second late-night tweet, Mr. Trump said that the F.B.I. missed warning signs of the gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida school on Wednesday because it was too focused on the Russia investigation. \u201cVery sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,\u201d\u00a0he wrote<\/a>. \u201cThis is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has long viewed reports of Russian intrusion as a threat to his legitimacy, a way for Democrats, the news media or the \u201cdeep state\u201d to question his victory in the Electoral College over\u00a0Hillary Clinton<\/a>\u00a0in 2016. When his Justice Department indicted the 13 Russians and three Russian entities on Friday for trying to\u00a0\u201csow discord in the U.S. political system,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the president focused on the fact that no evidence was presented that he or his campaign was knowingly involved.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the indictment made no assertion that the president or anyone affiliated with him did anything wrong, understandably a relief for Mr. Trump, given a year of investigation and media reports exploring the possibility of collaboration with Russia. The \u201cinformation warfare against the United States,\u201d as one Russian organization called it, started as early as 2014, predating Mr. Trump\u2019s entry into the race.<\/p>\n

But the indictment also determined that by 2016 the effort had evolved into a deliberate attempt to support Mr. Trump and disparage Mrs. Clinton. And the charges against the Russians are not the end of the investigation by Mr. Mueller, nor do they mean that there were no contacts or cooperation that may eventually spell legal trouble for people in the president\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

Previous legal filings and news accounts have documented multiple contacts between Mr. Trump\u2019s team and Russians in 2016. Among them was a\u00a0June 2016 meeting<\/a>\u00a0hosted by Donald Trump Jr., the president\u2019s son, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, his campaign chairman, on the promise that Russian visitors would provide incriminating information about Mrs. Clinton as part of the Russian government\u2019s support of the elder Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

The findings included in Friday\u2019s indictment bolstered the conclusions of American intelligence agencies, which for more than a year have said that Russia interfered in the election, a determination that Mr. Trump has occasionally accepted but more often\u00a0dismissed as a \u201choax.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Only in a written statement that aides issued in his name after his tweet on Friday was any concern expressed about the Russian attack described in the indictment, and then only to urge his critics to stop questioning him.<\/p>\n

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U.S. & POLITICS<\/span>\u00a0By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA and AARON BYRD<\/span>\u00a05:03<\/span><\/section>\n
How Do Russian Bots Work?<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How Do Russian Bots Work?<\/h4>\n
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How do bots and trolls work to infiltrate social media platforms and influence U.S. elections? We take a closer look at these insidious online pests to explain how they work.<\/p>\n

By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA and AARON BYRD on\u00a0Publish Date<\/span>October 31, 2017.\u00a0<\/span>Photo by Aaron Byrd\/The New York Times.\u00a0<\/span>Watch in Times Video \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord and rancor to be successful,\u201d the statement said. \u201cIt\u2019s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions. We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s position stood in contrast to that of fellow Republicans who responded to the indictment with calls for tougher action against Russia. To many, the president\u2019s reaction once again raised the question of why he would go easy on Moscow. He has spoken about Mr. Putin in generally flattering or friendly terms and\u00a0avoided direct criticism<\/a>\u00a0even during moments of enormous stress in the relationship between the two countries.<\/p>\n

For the moment, the government is left to act without the president. Jeh C. Johnson, a secretary of homeland security under Mr. Obama, said the best way to stop Russia from interfering in the future is the threat of a powerful response. \u201cWhen it comes to cyberattacks, it will always be easier to be on offense than defense,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when it comes to cyberattacks between nation-states, the most effective defense is to simply make the offensive behavior cost-prohibitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the best way to do that, experts said, is for the president to lead the way. \u201cThe U.S. government cannot mobilize an effective strategy without White House leadership and prioritization,\u201d said Heather A. Conley, a State Department official under President\u00a0George W. Bush<\/a>\u00a0who testified at a Senate hearing in the past week on defending against Russian interference.<\/p>\n

Despite the warnings by the intelligence chiefs and the threat detailed in the indictment, she said, \u201cthere continues to be no policy message or response, leaving our country unprotected and vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

John P. Carlin, a former assistant attorney general for national security and chief of staff to Mr. Mueller when he was F.B.I. director, said the president\u2019s silence sent a message to Russia and the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it does have consequences,\u201d he said. The American government can warn against further interference, but \u201cit would be better if it gets driven by the commander in chief. The goal is to drive a clear message that says the United States and our allies throughout the world that share our values are drawing a line that says \u2018stop, this is unacceptable.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n