White House Backs Away From Putin’s “Sincere Offer” to Turn Over U.S. Citizens

Well, it only took them a few days to stomp out this particular fire. Kudos to Team Trump for that, I suppose.

Let’s face it. Republicans haven’t been the most adept at putting out a good message to the public, given that the face of the GOP is a sneering, poorly-coiffed mountebank, with a mind that is a bag of cats.

And he’s probably a Russian asset.

On Thursday afternoon, the White House finally determined that turning over American citizens and former American diplomats into the hands of a murderous, hostile foreign regime is probably bad form.

In backing away from the offer made by Putin, Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave this statement:

“It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”

Made in sincerity. By the man who has journalists and dissidents murdered. He poisons critics and opponents.

But this was sincere.

Gotcha.

And speaking of horrible messaging, the White House has been trying to reel in the fail ever since Monday’s public love-in in Helsinki, where Trump sided with Vladimir Putin over the United States intelligence community.

On Tuesday, the president attempted a walk back of his horrible Helsinki performance by saying he trusted our intelligence community and that he meant to say he didn’t see why it wouldn’t be Russia [that interfered in the 2016 election], rather than what he actually said: He didn’t see why it would be Russia. He quickly added that it could be “other people,” as well.

It wasn’t, but he has his marching orders.

On Wednesday, Trump appeared to say “no” to questions about whether Russia still posed a threat to the U.S., prompting the White House to clarify hours after that the president was trying to say “no” to taking additional questions.

Sanders’s statement on Thursday was issued less than an hour before the Senate, in a rare display of bipartisan unity, passed, 98-0, a resolution that warns Trump against handing over former U.S. diplomats to Russia.

That’s right. The Senate is so unsure of Donald Trump’s ability to do the right thing, in regards to Russia and Vladimir Putin, that the vote crossed party lines and was handed down, unanimously.

Why do you think even his loyalists within the GOP were spooked into voting for this resolution?

Well, besides everything we’ve seen since Monday and how easily he rolled over for Putin, when Putin  – get this – suggested allowing U.S. investigators to observe questioning of the 12 recently indicted Russians, in exchange for turning over U.S. citizens, including a former ambassador to Russia, Donald Trump referred to it as an “incredible offer.”

It’s only an incredible offer if you have an IQ of room temperature.

Sanders even went on to say Trump’s team would discuss it.

Newly minted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pretty much set the pace for that discussion.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” he said, one day after the State Department called the request “absurd.”

Trump-approved FBI Director Christopher Wray, while appearing at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday fielded a question about the possibility, himself.

“I never want to say never about anything, but it’s certainly not high on our list of investigative techniques,” Wray said, prompting laughter and cheers in the room.

Today’s unity vote in the Senate should have sent a clear message to Trump: Partisan politics may keep left and right in a constant squabble, but if you want to see everybody stand up on one side, try messing with the U.S.

Trump can include that in his next mission report.