Monday, December 30, 2019

Putin claims Trump helped him again


A new TASS story sounds suspiciously familiar: 
because it's almost a carbon copy of the incident Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced from the White House Press Room on Sunday, December 17, 2017, (two years ago) saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned at Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, that Trump's supplying “secret information” had helped Russian FSB agents mop up a terrorist cell.
So on December 27, 2019, according to the Kremlin, Putin spoke with President Trump to thank him…again…for information that Putin said assisted Russia to thwart another terrorist attack this time over the New Year's holiday. (How is it U.S. intelligence agents can catch terrorists in Russia but can't catch terrorist mass shooters here at home?)
TASS reports that the Russian Federal Security service said it obtained the information from its “American partners” and seized material from two Russian suspects that confirmed they were preparing to launch terrorist attacks...again in St. Petersburg...during the upcoming holiday. What an amazing coincidence; terrorists are stopped at the same time of year in the same foreign city by the same U.S. Intelligence people! 
Of course, no further details were provided.
(What the Russians are asking people to do is to connect the dots - with no dots.)
There was no immediate comment from the White House, which is strange because if Trump actually had anything to do with supplying this information that stopped an attack, he'd be tweeting about it nonstop. The White House did not even acknowledge any call with Putin. All the reporting came from TASS or the Kremlin. 
(Two days later, after repeatedly being asked about the Kremlin report, the White House released a statement admitting there was a call and promptly re-directed everyone to a claim that the two had also discussed nuclear issues.)

So what this sounds like is Trump getting a positive performance review at his annual evaluation from the boss for not saying a word about Russia completing a railroad into Crimea ahead of full annexation and diverting election-interference attention away from Russia and toward Ukraine. 
Fox is always willing to deflect for Trump to appease Putin.

       Putin is thanking Trump for a tip from something U.S. intelligence sources discovered…the same intelligence agencies Trump has openly disparaged in favor of whatever Putin says. Why would Trump trust anything our agencies uncovered? And if Putin is so convincingly powerful why is he relying on American intelligence agencies to save his ass from a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg and then thanking his puppet Trump, who believes our intelligence and national security agencies make up a part of a "Deep State" that is out to get him? Does the FSB suck at discovering potential terrorists in their own country? How did U.S. intelligence stumble upon it first? Why would anyone, including Putin, believe anything Trump says?
       This is a calculated cynical appeal to Trump supporters as a means of embellishing Donald Trump’s great accomplishments from a Russian perspective.
“You like Donald, yes? Here, we give you more reason for liking...because he helps Mother Russia.”