Trump quiet on Russian meddling, says NSA chief Michael Rogers

Investigators are looking into whether President Trump knew about the stolen emails that were eventually published on WikiLeaks. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, GoodCall News, Foreign Policy Journal, Washington Technology, Elevation DC, Connection Newspapers and The Maryland Gazette. They have also asked why Trump routinely took policy positions favorable to Russian Federation.

“I think, in fairness, you can’t say nothing’s been done”, he said. Manafort has allegedly been spending this untaxed income on his lavish lifestyle back in the States.

Even though the FBI likely made this claim in an effort to assure the American people that they are protected by the bureau’s forces, many Americans have spoken out against the FBI to major news outlets over the past few days. “Thirty-five diplomats were expelled”, explained CNN’s Tom Foreman. It echoed the alarm expressed when Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats acknowledged at a February 13 hearing that “there’s no single agency in charge” of blocking potential Russian meddling in this year’s midterm elections.

Is Trump aiding and abetting the Russians? “The statement is simply false”.

Rogers, too, said he hasn’t received any direction or additional authority from the White House to take specific action against Russian Federation for the meddling, which US intelligence agencies have found was aimed at helping Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016.

The problem could be that some Trump critics appear to think of Russian Federation only in terms of countering online election interference. And did they help the Russians disseminate the information?

It’s an attitude that baffles some Republicans.

Sixty percent said that the president is not doing enough to respond to the Russians’ alleged incursion in the elections, compared to 26 percent who said he is.

“Reporters live on Twitter and seek validation from it”, the lawmaker continued.

They aren’t saying that they’ve looked into the possibility of these ties and found there’s nothing to them; they’re saying they don’t even want to look.

They also, perhaps, give outsized influence to what the president says, or does not say, without weighing it against the administration’s actions.

USA intelligence officials have said that Wikileaks got from Russian Federation the emails from the Democratic National Committee and key Clinton ally John Podesta.

Rogers told lawmakers he does have limited authority to direct U.S. Cyber Command to take unspecified proactive measures to disrupt foreign cyber activities overseas and blunt the impact of future attacks on U.S. election infrastructure.

“Clearly, what we have done hasn’t been enough”, he said.

Asked by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., whether he’d been authorized by either Trump or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to do more against Russian attacks, Rogers said: “No, I have not”. Because Obama thought Hillary was going to win. “I can tell you today that Pompeo and others are using all that money”.

It is way past time for Trump to reassure the citizens of this country that he takes this matter seriously, and that he will do all that is required to defend our constitution, as his oath stipulates, “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. According to sources who spoke to CNN, F.B.I. investigators have questioned witnesses about whether Trump showed an interest in running for president as far back as 2014, and how that desire coincided with his business ventures in Russian Federation.

As the New York Times noted in its story on the Mueller indictments, the Central Intelligence Agency has “work (ed) covertly … for decades … to influence political outcomes overseas”.