Trumps Russia problem: Six questions still unanswered
President-elect Donald Trump, to no one’s surprise, chose to attack BuzzFeed for releasing a salacious, unconfirmed 35-page dossier from a claimed former member of British intelligence. He will get some sympathy — from the press, no less — in condemning the publication of unproven allegations. However, he leaves a raft of questions and puts Republicans on the spot in a number of ways:
1. Asked at the end of the news conference if he could say that no one connected with his campaign had contact with Russia, he did not reply. He answered the remainder of the question having to do with Vladimir Putin’s hacking. “Russia will respect our country more. He shouldn’t have done it.” Because the allegation concerns the incoming president of the United States, shouldn’t an independent commission or prosecutor be enlisted to investigate, at the very least, that part of the issue?
2. Trump seems to think it is a good thing Putin wanted him, and that having Trump like him is an asset. This naive, childlike belief in one’s own specialness is not unique. President Obama’s supporters often argued his mere presence on the international stage would help U.S. relations. Will Trump try to get Putin to like him, or, as his secretary of state nominee suggested, respond with strength when Russia acts in ways contrary to international norms?
3. For the first time, Trump said of the hacking, “I think it was Russia.” Later he said that others hack too, quite different from saying other countries were responsible for the Democratic National Committee hacks. Why have he and his surrogates consistently tried to deflect blame from Russia or insisted other countries were responsible? If he now accepts that the intelligence community has been right all along, was the advice he was getting from his own staff faulty or misguided?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/01/11/trumps-russia-problem-six-questions-still-unanswered/?utm_term=.ee8d831e75c3