2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump tried without success on Sunday [7-9-17] to put the matter of Russia’s election meddling behind him, insisting that he had ‘strongly pressed’ President Vladimir V. Putin on the matter twice in a private meeting last week and declaring that it was ‘time to move forward.’
But if Mr. Trump believed his willingness to raise the election interference directly with Mr. Putin would quiet questions about whether he could be trusted to stand up to Moscow — an issue that has shadowed his presidency — he grappled instead on Sunday with the reality that the meeting might have raised more suspicions than it quelled.
Lawmakers in both parties said Mr. Trump had appeased the Russian president by failing to insist that he was responsible for the breach or threaten any consequences, and empowered him by appearing willing to partner on a cybersecurity effort to prevent future incursions.
‘You are hurting your ability to govern this nation by forgiving and forgetting and empowering,’ Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said of Mr. Trump, calling his meeting with Mr. Putin ‘disastrous.’ “
-Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “‘Time to Move Forward’ on Russia, Trump Says, as Criticism Intensifies,” The New York Times online, July 9, 2017