INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “It was a jaw-dropping moment that embodied the utterly unfathomable, logic-defying and increasingly troubling twilight zone into which Washington has plunged since the Helsinki summit. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was onstage at a security forum in Aspen, Colorado, when he was told by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the White House had announced on Twitter that President Donald Trump had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit in the fall. ‘Say that again,’ Coats said, doing a double take and laughing in disbelief at the absurdity of the latest episode in the Russia saga. Once he had collected himself, he added: ‘Okaaaay…That’s going to be special.’ It was a comic twist that exemplified the way Trump has tipped American foreign policy and presidential convention on its head since his controversial summit with Putin on Monday [7-16-18], in which he was deeply deferential to the Russian leader and lashed out at his own country. The barely believable events of recent days are provoking rising debate in Washington and in the media over whether Russia does indeed have some incriminating intelligence it is holding over the President’s head that is influencing his behavior toward Putin. There has so far been no publicly available evidence to support that case.”
-Stephen Collinson, “Putin invite sends Washington into Russian twilight zone,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 20, 2018 7:25 am