Dubs President Trump’s refusal to stand behind America’s intelligence community disgraceful

Boston (July 16, 2018) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement after U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir met today in Helsinki, Finland.

“It is a national embarrassment that President Trump would put defending the legitimacy of his own election over defending American democracy and its people,” said Senator Markey.  “President Trump turned this meeting with President Putin into a fawning conversation when we needed a forceful confrontation.

“America’s relationship with Russia is at its lowest point since the Cold War because Russia is not behaving like a responsible world power. President Trump had the opportunity to demand the extradition of the 12 Russian hackers indicted for election meddling, and he did not. President Trump needed to reinvigorate our nuclear weapons control dialogue with Russia, and he did not. President Trump should have urged President Putin to keep its promises to assist in ending the civil war in Syria, but he did not. President Trump should have publicly protested, in the strongest terms, Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, but he did not. President Trump improvised this meeting, wasted this opportunity to negotiation from a position of power, undermined his own intelligence leaders, and disgraced the office of the Presidency. President Trump practically invited President Putin to continue interfering with our election and undermining our sacred democracy.

“America is always ready for diplomacy and engagement, but as we saw with the recent Trump-Kim summit, lack of preparation is a recipe for failure and Trump approached this meeting with naivete, vanity, and no tangible strategy,” concluded Senator Markey. “President Putin got everything he could have wanted from this meeting, while the United States got nothing.” 

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