FBI/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Every day, it seems, brings another load of disturbing information about President Donald Trump’s interactions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A few days ago, we learned that Trump’s behavior was so troubling that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation to find out if Trump was working, ‘on behalf of Russia against American interests.’ The probe merged with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, so we don’t know what Mueller may have concluded. More recently, we discovered that Trump has held five face-to-face meetings with Putin for which he made sure there was no written record, not even for his own top staff to review, going as far as confiscating the notes from his interpreter and warning him not to repeat a word of what he heard. Details from those meetings are even more troubling. Trump spent two hours talking with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in July 2017 on the day he found out the US media were about to reveal explosive information that top Trump campaign figures met in 2016 with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower. The next day, on the flight home, Trump dictated a misleading email about what his campaign staff discussed with the Russians.”
–Frida Ghitis, “Putin must be smiling as he watches Trump carry out his agenda,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, January 16, 2019 1:53 am