Newt Gingrich: The truth about Trump, Putin, and Obama

President Trump’s summit Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki created a firestorm of controversy. President Trump seemed to be publicly siding with the Russian dictator against the American intelligence agencies.

The initial appearance was so bad that I tweeted: “President Trump must clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin. It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected – immediately.”

After flying home from Helsinki and reviewing the tape and transcript of his press conference with Putin, President Trump said he has “full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies” and that he accepts “our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place.”

President Trump then reminded everyone of the Obama administration’s failures in dealing with Russian meddling in the election. President Trump noted that President Obama and his advisers had information that the Russians had been working to interfere in the election and they ignored it, because they thought Hillary Clinton was going to win.

President Trump said: “President Obama, along with (then-CIA Director John) Brennan and (then Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper and the whole group that you see on television now – probably getting paid a lot of money by your networks – they knew about Russia’s attempt to interfere in the election in September, and they totally buried it. And as I said, they buried it because they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. It turned out it didn’t happen that way.

“By contrast, my administration has taken a very firm stance – it’s a very firm stance – on a strong action. We’re going to take strong action to secure our election systems and the process.”

There are two key facts in this statement...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/18/newt-gingrich-truth-about-trump-putin-and-obama.html