According to American intelligence agencies, in early 2017, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered a sprawling effort to sabotage the recent American presidential election. Putin wanted to cripple the faith Americans have in their own elections and to undermine a United States-led “liberal world order” that he saw as a threat to their security. As a way to achieve this goal, the assessment found that Russia worked to help Donald J. Trump win the election. Eight years later, Trump sat in the Oval Office for a meeting with President Voldymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and rendered, once again, his own judgment on that period. There was no Russian sabotage, just a “phony witch hunt” of which both he and Putin were victims. The president sees common cause with Putin, a merging of interests forged through battles against those he believes are his and Putin’s mutual adversaries – including Democratic lawmakers, European leaders and a spectral “deep state” inside the U.S. government.
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