Who Is Trumps Handler in Russia?
Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who helped launch the Trump-Russia investigation, says the current occupant of the Oval Office \u201cposes the greatest counterintelligence threat of any president in modern history.\u201d It\u2019s not just that Trump and all of his top people have lied about their connections to Moscow, Strzok tells Molly Jong-Fast and Rick Wilson in the latest episode of The New Abnormal. (Although that is super weird.) It\u2019s that he takes all of these inexplicably pro-Kremlin positions on issues he clearly doesn\u2019t care about. (Montenegro? Really?) Which leads Molly to wonder: If Trump is really acting like a Russian asset, who would be Trump\u2019s handler in Moscow? \u201cI don't think he needs one,\u201d Strzok responds. This isn\u2019t some old-school spy case, with dead drops and covert communications. \u201cThe best intelligence relationship\u2026 if you want them to do something is: \u2018I've got you on the hook. I know you're going to do, you know what I want. And I don't ever have to tell you because of the leverage I have over you.\u2019 And that's what I think Russia has over Trump. How else do you explain all these fucking inexplicably things that he's doing with regard to NATO, with refusing to say word one about [Putin critic Alexei] Navalny being poisoned, about the bounties\u201d Russia offered the Taliban for killing U.S. troops. Plus! Strzok addresses the charges that the White House dialed up his investigation into Trump\u2019s Russian connections. (No way, Strzok says.) Rick teases some material from Michael Cohen\u2019s newly released book. Molly sheds tears over the sunken Trump flotilla\u2014and reports from the raging hellscape that is Manhattan. And! Strzok reconsiders his earlier position. \u201cI was maybe a little too flippant about saying [Trump] doesn't have a handler,\u201d Strzok says. There are so many things Trump \u201csays and does that are very much in Russia's interests [and] that he doesn't have an independent knowledge of.\u201d It makes this counterintelligence veteran wonder.
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