At a press conference in July 2016, then presidential candidate Donald Trump called on Russia to interfere in the 2016 elections, saying "Russia, if you listen, I hope you can find 30,000 missing email messages for Hillary Clinton."
After four full years, the specter of questioning and questioning the nature of Trump's mysterious relationship with Moscow has returned once again to appear with his head, while publishing reports that it pays rewards to the Taliban fighters for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Not only did the US president deny his knowledge of Russian funding that killed his citizens at the hands of Taliban elements, but went on to refuse to take any retaliatory action yet, which raises a question about Trump's lenient stances with Russia.
Although intelligence officials confirmed to the New York Times the accuracy of this information, which tracked and monitored financial transfers between the two parties, which necessitated passing these reports to the White House, Trump denied in a series of tweets on the Twitter platform these reports.
"No one has ever reported, informed, or informed my deputy Mike Pines or White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about what have been described as attacks on our soldiers in Afghanistan by the Russians, as the New York Times quoted false news from an unknown source," he tweeted.
"Everyone denies it and we have not been subjected to many attacks," he added. "No one has been more tough on Russia than the Trump administration."
But an objective look at Trump's record with Russia leaves the door open to more questions without convincing answers. Some reports linked his political stances to his commercial interests in Russia, although he had abandoned all of his plans and deals in Russia upon his election as president.
Gram Trump
before the 2016 elections, the deputy of the Russian National Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, declared that, "If the candidate Trump wins, Russia will drink champagne (the name of a type of wine) in anticipation of being able to strengthen its positions on Syria and Ukraine."
After coming to power, Trump surprised the Americans by talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a great man and a wonderful person" and also took the initiative to withdraw most American forces from Syria.
Trump also refused to condemn Russia or its president because of what is described in the West as its continued aggression against Ukraine and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory.
Trump also spoiled the 2018 NATO summit, which was at the top of its agenda, to punish Moscow.
He also expressed his desire to invite Russia to participate in the G-8 summit to be held in the United States next September, in addition to his intention to withdraw thousands of soldiers from Germany, and his repeated assurances that NATO no longer has any value, but reiterated his desire and threat to withdraw from the alliance that formed mainly To counter Russian ambitions on the European continent.
Hence a lot of voices criticizing the president's behavior and attitudes, in which he participated in his own way, including former national security advisers such as Republican John Bolton and Democrat Susan Rice.
Bolton's book
John Bolton detailed his book, which was launched last month, "The Room in which This Happened ... The White House Memoirs" and affirmed that he faced the president's wrath when he received intelligence reports related to Russia, and stated in a television interview with the ABC News network "I think that I have enough examples of Russia indicating that the President probably did not want to hear about it. "
He added that he agreed with other former officials who claimed that Trump did not want to hear negative information about Putin. According to Bolton, "everyone understood the nature of Russia's activities, except perhaps the president."
Bolton confirmed what many New York Times sources went to, saying: "Trump's top advisers were only trying to inform the president about Russia's breaches so that his reaction could be recognized so that an appropriate response to dealing with Russia's threats was approved, but usually the president murmured and complained all the time." ".
Rice's article
In the same vein, the New York Times published an article on Susan Rice attacking Trump, writing: "Instead of a strict American position, President Trump has rejected the information on the basis that it is not reasonable and perhaps another trick about Russia from false news, with the aim of misrepresenting the Republicans." ".
And Rice said, "If we put aside the naivety of this allegation, then why when the President learned of this dangerous information did he publicly denounce any Russian efforts to kill American soldiers, and searches for options to respond to an American equally important?"
"There is an ongoing pattern that confirms Trump's bizarre tendency to serve Russian interests at the expense of the American. Remember that during the 2016 election campaign, Trump publicly urged the hacking of Hillary Clinton's e-mails and praised Boikeliks for posting stolen documents," she added.
Rice concluded that "Finally we learned that the Russians' efforts to kill American soldiers in cold blood do not worry this president. Trump does not pay attention to information and avoids responsibility and fails to act, and even avoids recording a diplomatic protest. Now Putin knows that he can kill American soldiers without To be held accountable by anyone. "
Fox News poll
Trump has fought a long denial battle against Congress and the judiciary over Russian interference in the 2016 election in his favor. Although the intelligence services confirmed the occurrence of this interference, the president still rejected this conclusion.
And it was not surprising that 50% of Americans believed that the Trump campaign was coordinated with Russia regarding the recent presidential elections, according to a poll of Fox News, known to be close to the Republican Party, and more than a thousand citizens participated in it in June last year.