As Trump and Putin meet, new evidence that 'Russian interference' was US intel deception

In Dec. 2016, the NSA complained that it was denied access to the intelligence used to accuse Russia of hacking and leaking Democratic Party emails. US intel chief James Clapper urged "compromise."

From left to right: DNI James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Mike Rogers, April 24 2015. (Photo by KEVIN DIETSCH/WHITE HOUSE POOL (ISP POOL IMAGES)/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

Three days before the first summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in July 2018, FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller accused Russian intelligence officers of hacking and leaking Democratic Party emails to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

Mueller’s conspicuously timed indictment inflamed the all-consuming controversy over Trump’s suspected complicity in a “Russian interference” plot to install him in office. The innuendo reached a fever pitch when Trump stood by Putin at a Helsinki news conference. Before a room of Russiagate-addled journalists on high alert for signs of “collusion” — or a confrontation that could disprove it — Trump said that he believed Putin’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial of meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump’s refusal to accept what was widely portrayed as a US intelligence consensus on Russian meddling triggered a political and media meltdown. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Republican Sen. John McCain both agreed that Trump had delivered “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president” in US history. A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, declared that with Trump’s comments, the US was now “in the midst of a national security crisis.” CIA Director turned MSNBC analyst John Brennan decreed that Trump’s heresy was not only impeachment-worthy, but “nothing short of treasonous.”

With a new Trump-Putin summit beginning today in Alaska, a newly declassified document adds to a growing body of evidence showing that the US president’s skepticism of “Russian interference” was in fact shared at the highest levels of US intelligence.