Trump’s love letters to Putin revealed during Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian collusion during the 2016 US election.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has released a series of letters from US President Donald Trump praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, years before the former was elected president.
The letters were revealed as part of a new report on Russian intelligence operatives and their interference in the 2016 Trump campaign – a report which mostly proves that Trump did in fact collude with Russia to win the election.
Trump’s pandering to the Russian president was on full display in a 2007 letter congratulating Putin on being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. The letter read, “Congratulations on being named Time’s magazine ‘Man of the Year’ – you definitely deserve it. As you probably heard, I am a big fan of yours!”
The phrase “I am big fan of yours” was emphasised by the now US President with a thick underline.
The praiseful content doesn’t end there, with a 2013 letter containing an attempt by Trump to persuade Putin into attending a Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, an event owned by Trump himself.
The letter asked Putin to be Trump’s date for the evening, reading, “I want to take this opportunity to personally invite you to be my guest of honor in Moscow on November 9th. I know you will have a great time.”
In an attempt to double down on the persuasion (in true all-caps Trump-style), an added hand-written message read, “THE WORLD”S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!”
Trump’s letters to Putin. Beautiful letters! Most perfect letters! Or, as Trump would put it, “He begged like a dog.” pic.twitter.com/Zh3oRvfNY6
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) August 18, 2020
Putin did not attend the contest.
The letters are part of a more serious issue surrounding the 2016 election, with key findings from the Senate Select Committee revealing that Putin had weaponised the hacking of Democratic campaign emails, with Trump receiving assistance from various Russian pass-throughs.
Further findings reveal that former campaign chair Paul Manafort was deemed a threat to US intelligence due to his contacts with Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik.
Can @SenateGOP @marcorubio in his capacity as Chairman of Senate Intel Committee explain to me why the Committee concluded Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian spy, but that Trump’s campaign manager giving him polling data is NOT collusion?
What *is* collusion?
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 18, 2020
The report essentially confirmed that the president had lied in a written testimony about not remembering a conversation with Roger Stone, who utilised his Julian Assange WikiLeaks back-channel to access Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails.
While Trump’s unwavering love of Putin was put on full display, the report all but confirmed something more serious. Trump and his officials sought out and accepted Russian interference during the election.
