Donald Trump could rightly be seen as a Russian asset, according to a former FBI director the ex-president fired in his first term.
Andrew McCabe appeared on the One Decision podcast co-hosted by former British intelligence agency chief Sir Richard Dearlove, who asked whether he thought it possible that Trump was a Russian asset, and he said, “I do, I do,” reported The Guardian.
“I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term," McCabe said. "But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions
McCabe raised suspicions about Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine and NATO in the face of Russian aggression and said he’s had concerns about his admiration for Vladimir Putin
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“You have to have some very serious questions about, why is it that Donald Trump … has this fawning sort of admiration for Vladimir Putin in a way that no other American president, Republican or Democrat, ever has," McCabe said.
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McCabe expressed “very serious concerns about a second Trump presidency and said that Russia had long desired to interfere with U.S. democracy.
I’m not a lawyer, but one reason could be that there’s not (yet?) a clear criminal case that would convince a judge. It’s not clear whether a crime is committed, maybe?
For example, Mr. McCabe says, ““I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term” (and similar comments), but ‘don’t know’ could mean there’s nit enough for prosecution? This is not China or Russia, where people are sentenced to.prison in closed-door trials and often not even their lawyers know what exactly their clients are accused of. Maybe we could call it another ‘weakness’ of democracy (which non-democratic state actors try to exploit)?
But I say ‘could’ and conclude I don’t know either.