Top Capitol Hill Democrats suggested Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is blackmailing President Trump, forcing him to favor Russia’s interests over America’s at the Helsinki summit.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said Mr. Trump appeared “afraid” of Mr. Putin and used Twitter to ask whether Mr. Putin is blackmailing the president with either personal, financial or politically damaging information.
“The answer to that question is that only thing that explains his behavior & his refusal to stand up to Putin,” the California Democrat tweeted.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer called on Mr. Trump’s national security team to testify before Congress about what was said before and after the summit.
The top Democrat in the Senate called on Republicans to stop criticizing law enforcement, including the FBI, in an effort to defend the president. He also stressed the need to ratchet up sanctions against Russia.
“When you just looked at the press conference, President Putin was the real victor,” Mr. Schumer said.
In Helsinki, Mr. Trump did not publicly confront Mr. Putin about Russia meddling in U.S. elections, calling the special counsel’s investigation into Russian collusion a “disaster for our country.”
Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence, reaffirmed the agencies’ reports that Russia was a culprit, attempting to influence the 2016 election and divide Americans.
“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security,” Mr. Coats said in a statement, responding to the president’s rebuke.
In a bipartisan showing, key Senate Intelligence Committee members blasted Mr. Trump’s performance.
“I think President Trump’s actions today were outrageous,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s top Democrat. “The president of the United States sided with Vladimir Putin over the unanimous assessment of the American intelligence community, over the bipartisan conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee, over the acknowledgment of Facebook, Twitter Google and YouTube that Russia manipulated their platforms.”
Mr. Warner was joined by Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican and a fellow committee member, at a Washington think tank meeting Monday on broader themes of Russian geopolitical aggression, and Mr. Rubio also criticized the president’s claims that he couldn’t imagine why Russia would want to influence the U.S. election.
“What the president said today is not accurate,” Mr. Rubio said. “The intelligence community has assembled probably an unparalleled amount of evidence in regards to Russian efforts to interfere, not just in 2016, but in ongoing efforts, not just in American society but in many other parts of the world represented here today.”
Participants at the event held by the Atlantic Council included members of parliaments and legislatures in the United Kingdom, Canada and Eastern Europe.
Earlier this month, the Senate panel released unclassified, initial findings from its 16 months of investigative work. It concluded that the U.S. intelligence community’s initial January 2017 assessment that Russia tried to boost Mr. Trump and hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election was “well-supported and the tradecraft was strong.”
Prior to the Helsinki meeting, Mr. Warner was one of many Democrats who called for Mr. Trump to cancel the Helsinki talks after the Justice Department on Friday, through the special counsel probe of Robert Mueller, charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking into the computer networks of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton presidential campaign.
The charges also included attempting to break into state boards of elections and other government agencies, conspiracy against the U.S. and money laundering.
Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican and another Intelligence committee member, said the Trump campaign did nothing wrong but it’s nevertheless a “fact” that Russians hacked presidential campaign accounts and launched cyberattacks in more than 20 states.
“There is no evidence that any member of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, but there is plenty of evidence that the Russians aggressively attempted to interfere in our election,” the Oklahoma Republican said in a press release.
Mr. Trump, for his part, attempted to smooth over his comments and reaffirm his faith in America’s intelligence community, in a tweet from Air Force One on his way back to the states.
“As I said today and many times before, ‘I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people.’ However, I also recognize that in order to build a brighter future, we cannot exclusively focus on the past — as the world’s two largest nuclear powers, we must get along!” he tweeted.
• Dan Boylan can be reached at dboylan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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