Another Vladimir once said, “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.” That was Vladimir Lenin but today the ex KGB chief Vladimir Putin has adopted that rule when dealing with Trump.

When I pressed our senior senator on the unconfirmed report of Putin putting a bounty on our soldiers in Afghanistan, Sen. Susan Collins responded, “If true, the alleged actions by Russia are completely unacceptable and require immediate action by our government. If the president was in fact briefed on the matter and judged the intelligence to be reliable, then it is inexcusable that he did not immediately take action to protect U.S. troops and impose sanctions on Russia.”

We now know, from confirmed news coverage, that the discussion of Russian bounties was included in a presidential daily brief. Yet we hear from Trump, in a recent Axios interview, that the intelligence never made it to his desk.

Perhaps the Senate Republicans should investigate why Trump is once again acting more like “mush” than “steel” and giving Putin a pass.

William Weber
Portland

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