Today's FAX to MoC -- Trump must not meet with Putin

[RandomAccess]

Stripped of all the fancy formatting -- bold, different fonts, different sizes, red in places, centered in places:



RUSSIA
PRESIDENT TRUMP MUST NOT TAKE THE MEETING WITH PUTIN ON MONDAY.
He's signaling that he's going to anyway. So
If he does, he MUST have other Americans in the meeting as well.

President Trump was briefed by Mr. Rosenstein earlier this week on the 12 indictments filed against Russian military officers (GRU) today.
Not only did Trump not have a single word of condemnation for what Russia did or the hackers, as outlined in today’s indictments, or a word of congratulations for the amazing detailed work of the FBI, he insists on continuing to call the Mueller investigation a Witch Hunt. IT. IS. NOT. And the indictment itself is ample proof of that.


No Other Americans Allowed into Trump’s Putin Meeting
Trump, CNN reports, plans to meet with Putin one on one, with no advisers or staff.
“Without official note-takers or other witnesses,” CNN notes, “one-on-one meetings lack any official record, making it difficult afterward to determine whether agreements have been reached.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-insists-no-other-americans-allowed-into-putin-meeting.html

Trump might cancel military exercises if Putin asks https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/12/politics/trump-nato-military-exercises/index.html
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump capped off his dramatic appearance at the annual NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday by teasing another controversial possibility, saying he would not rule out ceasing NATO military exercises in the Baltic States if Russian leader Vladimir Putin requested it during their upcoming meeting in Helsinki, Finland.

Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Russia is trying to flip Turkey. They’re trying to flip many of our allies. They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world.”
— U.S. ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison, in an interview on Fox News.
https://politicalwire.com/2018/07/08/quote-of-the-day-1974/ Isakson, Perdue, Woodall

Russian TV boasts about electing Trump ahead of summit with Putin
. . . The analyst went on to say Americans viewed the alleged hacking as “aggression against the country” and believed the Russian government “caused some trouble there.”
“What trouble did we cause?” he asked. “We just elected Trump, that’s all.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-election-putin-summit-president-tv-john-bolton-hacking-cyber-security-a8423791.html

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats: Russia is Attempting to Influence US Midterms
Russia is attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned at a meeting co-hosted by the Atlantic Council in Normandy, France, on June 8. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/director-of-national-intelligence-dan-coats-russia-is-attempting-to-influence-us-midterms-divide-transatlantic-alliance



When will you realize Trump is a Russian asset -– wittingly or un- -- and take appropriate steps to protect the United States from becoming
a Russian satellite?


NOT HELPFUL: Six Republican Senators Visit Moscow
on U.S. Independence Day
Richard Shelby-AL Jerry Moran-KS Steve Daines-MT
Ron Johnson-WI John Kennedy-LA John Thune-SD
John Hoeven-ND

Nice bleepin’ optics and symbolism ya got there, GOP! Given Trump’s clear allegiance to Putin and disregard for democratic institutions, the law and the Constitution, I found their trip actually painful -- a betrayal. Are you ALL beholden to Russia? As if that’s not bad enough, they can’t even get their stories straight and come back minimizing and dismissing Russia’s attack on the U.S. elections:


Also not helpful: GOP Senators Tell
Contradictory Stories About Moscow Trip
A top Republican senator shocked his colleagues when he suggested, after returning from a trip to Moscow with fellow GOP lawmakers, that U.S. sanctions targeting Russia were not working and the Kremlin’s election interference was really no big deal.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senators-tell-contradictory-stories-about-moscow-trip