Rep. Adam Schiff told ABC's This Week that Trump's private meeting with Putin turned out well for Russia, but Trump acted like he was compromised to the Russian president.
During a discussion about the Surrender Summit in Helsinki, Trump's former Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert ran interference for Trump saying the outrage was overblown.
And even though there is no official record of what was said in his private meeting with Putin, Bossert claimed the talks were productive overall.
How could he know?
Stephanopoulos turned to Rep. Schiff for his thoughts on any supposed agreement between the two countries. And he pointed out that the only person who had a productive meeting was Putin.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And I want to bring that to Congressman Schiff, because we have heard the Russians say that there were verbal agreements made, Congressman Schiff, that they were important agreements made. We just heard Tom Bossert say he was told that they weren't, but we haven't heard much else on the record from officials in the Trump administration.
SCHIFF: Well, listen, I would agree with Tom that the talks in Helsinki were productive, but they were productive for Vladimir Putin. The reality is we have no idea what this president, our president agreed to. That's an asymmetric advantage for the Kremlin because they do. The Kremlin intelligence agents know exactly what took place in that meeting.
The California Democratic congressman said only Russian intelligence agents knows what actually went on in the two hour private meeting.
Republican Congressman [Will] Hurd actually wrote in a NY Times op-ed piece, "Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them."
He also demanded Republicans in Congress provide a check against Trump.
The ABC host then asked Schiff if he felt Trump was comprised with Russia and Schiff did not hold back.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Schiff, you've had some tough words for the president this week, calling him the gravest threat to democracy, other Democrats have followed that up as well. Just bluntly, do you believe he is compromised by Vladimir Putin?
SCHIFF: Well I certainly think he’s acting like someone who’s compromised, and it may very well be that he is compromised or it may very well be that he believes that he’s compromised, that the Russians have information on him.
We were not permitted to look into one of the allegations that was most serious to me, and that is were the Russians laundering money through the Trump organization? The Republicans wouldn’t allow us to go near that.
I hope that Bob Mueller’s investigating it, because again, if that’s the leverage the Russians are using, it would not only explain the president’s behavior, but it would help protect the country by knowing that in fact our president was compromised.
Trump's performance in "Helstinky" was odorous as David Brody remarked, but just as foul-smelling is the way Republicans in Congress have been trying to block, interfere or kill all inquires into Trump's finances and everything that pertains to the Mueller investigation and Russian cyber-warfare against its own country.
Shame, shame, shame.
