2016 ELECTION/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Monday [7-16-18] publicly questioned the U.S. intelligence conclusion that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election as he stood beside Russian leader Vladimir Putin, after the leaders met for four hours on issues including arms control and the future of Syria. U.S. lawmakers and former administration officials in both parties said Mr. Trump’s apparent decision to side with Mr. Putin over his own intelligence agencies marked a stunning effort by the president to align himself with a U.S. adversary after years of calling for better relations between the two countries…Mr. Coats, in a statement following the Helsinki news conference, said: ‘We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.’ Mr. Trump spent much of Monday’s news conference attacking his Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, describing the probe into whether his associates colluded with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election as a “disaster for our country” that has undermined U.S. relations with Moscow. And he continued to blame the U.S., at least in part, for the poor state of those relations, saying the U.S. had been ‘foolish.’”
–Rebecca Ballhaus, “Trump Questions Finding of Russia’s 2016 Meddling as He Appears With Putin,” The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2018 4:18 pm