Section: The Atlantic (USA)
What Does It Mean to Have ‘Repeated Contacts’ With Russian Intelligence?
Tuesday evening, The New York Times reported that associates of then-candidate Donald Trump, including within his presidential campaign, had had “repeated” contact with Russian intelligence officials, and that American intelligence and law-enforcement officials had records of intercepted communications to prove it. The news came a day after...
What Happens Next Is Up to Republicans
The immediate question raised by the latest information published by The New York Times is: What next? Will Congress investigate? Will it subpoena records, including the tax records that may clarify the financial obligations—if any—Donald Trump has to Russia? And since Congress is so dominated by one party, that first question raises a follow-up...
Was Obama Too Soft on Russia?
President Trump on Thursday appeared to suggest that his immediate predecessor’s Russia policy resulted in Russian’s invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017As a...
Did Trump Aides Speak With Russian Intelligence Before the Election?
If the leaks that doomed Michael Flynn were a signal from the intelligence community, perhaps the message they intended to carry was: You ain’t seen nothing yet.The national security adviser’s abrupt resignation Monday night, which the White House says was a firing, came after it became clear that Flynn had lied to the public and to...
Trump’s Russia Reset Will Survive Flynn’s Ouster
As soon as news reached Moscow that Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn had resigned after it became clear he had lied to the vice president about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, hawkish Russian lawmakers began to hyperventilate. Shadowy elements in Washington were trying to ruin not just Flynn, but the entire...
The Logan Act Is the Least of It
Stop talking about the Logan Act.It was not the violation of this antique and ignored piece of anti-Jacobin legislation that has touched off the biggest foreign-policy scandal since Watergate.Nobody would care if an incoming national security adviser had confidential conversations with an ambassador of a hostile foreign government before...
Flynn’s Calls With Russia’s Ambassador: Who Knew What, and When?
Mike Flynn resigned Monday as President Trump’s national-security adviser, capping a tumultuous few weeks that began with revelations he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.The nature of the conversations, what Flynn told Vice...
Trump’s First Major Foreign-Policy Success?
One of the more bizarre spectacles of Donald Trump’s young presidency came on Saturday night, when he stood with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a press conference called after North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. Trump let Abe speak first, standing politely in the background as he condemned the test. When...
How Democracies Lose in Cyberwar
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” This 19th-century quip, often attributed to the satirist Ambrose Bierce, deserves a 21st-century update: “Attacks against the U.S. are God’s way of teaching Americans how weaker enemies are stronger than they seem.”Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are the paradigmatic examples of this....
Emmanuel Macron’s Unexpected Shot at the French Presidency
The French presidential election has been full of surprises—from former Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s failed Socialist primary bid to the financial scandal plaguing the campaign of François Fillon, the center-right candidate. And no one has benefitted from these surprises more than Emmanuel Macron.A poll released Monday by French pollster...
