The Trump administration is a virtual Society to Save Print Journalism.
Aside from President Trump’s generally divisive character, statements and actions, his affinity for Vladimir Putin – along with his myriad business, personal and campaign connections to all things Russian – couldn’t make better news stories.
Taken together, the Russian connections are too many and too pointed to be coincidental – despite Trump’s many public protests that “Russia is a ruse.”
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration, after the election and before Trump’s inauguration, became desperately concerned about the growing evidence of Russia’s interference in the U.S. election. So concerned, in fact, that White House officials worked to spread that evidence across government. Officials had two aims: Ensure that the Russian meddling isn’t duplicated in the future, and leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
Some key sentences of the Times story are: “American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings” between Russian officials and people close to Putin “and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Trump associates.”