GOP/RUSSIA/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Even for an era of strained relations, the images that crossed back over the Atlantic last week stood out: Seven Republican senators and one Republican congresswoman ushered into a Moscow conference room, exchanging pleasantries with top Russian officials on the eve of American Independence Day. But if the delegation was intended to help thaw friction between the two countries before a summit meeting between their two leaders, its aftermath has shown just how treacherous diplomacy between Washington and Moscow has become amid Russia’s brazen aggression abroad. In Moscow, the senators have been portrayed as anything from peacemakers to fools. Democrats in Washington were only slightly more generous. Russian commentators and officials, meanwhile, claimed that the senators’ overtures were evidence that the tide of United States-Russian relations were, in fact, moving toward the Kremlin just as President Trump prepared to meet privately with Mr. Putin, the Russian president.”
–Nicholas Fandos and Andrew E. Kramer, “How Fraught Is Meeting With Russia? Just Ask Republican Senators,” The New York Times online, July 10, 2018