2016 ELECTION/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump tried on Tuesday [7-17-18] to calm a storm over his failure to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, saying he misspoke in a joint news conference in Helsinki. Trump stunned the world on Monday [7-16-18] by shying away from criticizing the Russian leader for Moscow’s actions to undermine the election and cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies, prompting calls by some U.S. lawmakers for tougher sanctions and other actions to punish Russia…Trump, who was given numerous opportunities to publicly rebuke Putin during the news conference in Helsinki, instead praised the Russian leader for his ‘strong and powerful’ denial of the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that the Russian state meddled in the election…Although he faced pressure from critics, allied countries and even his own staff to take a tough line, Trump said not a single disparaging word in public about Moscow on any of the issues that have brought relations between the two nuclear powers to the lowest ebb since the Cold War. Republicans and Democrats accused him of siding with an adversary rather than his own country. Mainly reading from a prepared statement, Trump said on Tuesday he had complete faith in U.S. intelligence agencies and accepted their conclusions. But he appeared to veer from his script to also hedge on who was responsible for the election interference.”
–Roberta Rampton, Susan Heavey, “Trump tries to calm political storm over Putin summit, says he misspoke,” Reuters, July 17, 2018 11:47 am