Schiff: ‘Trump Has Clearly Not Deterred the Russians from Engaging’ — He’s Encouraging Their Help Again

Sunday on MSNBC’s “Kasie DC,” House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) warned that Russia is “at it again” by attempting to meddle in the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

Schiff, who on numerous occasions claimed to have evidence of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election in President Donald Trump’s favor, told host Kasie Hunt that Trump “has clearly not deterred the Russians from engaging” again and said the president’s actions are encouraging them to help in 2020.

“Donald Trump has clearly not deterred the Russians from engaging. They’re at it again,” Schiff advised. “If anything, I think the sum total of the president’s actions is to encourage the Russians to help him. But if we call them out on it, we hold them accountable, and we can nonetheless provide a deterrent. The more generic, the more that the intelligence community tends to blur the lines between what Russia is doing or China or Iran, the more the Russians will feel they will not be held accountable.”

“I think that when the president, for example, stood up in Helsinki and basically said, Vladimir, you deny involving yourself in the last election, my intelligence community says you did, I’m with you, Vladimir. I don’t believe my own agencies. That’s an encouragement,” explained Schiff. “When the president is on the phone with Putin as he was a week or so ago in the face of his own intelligence agencies saying now publicly, but, of course, knowing then privately the Russians are at it again and the president says not willing to confront Putin, that is an encouragement. Now, the president won’t say what he spoke to about with Putin, but I think we can all understand he’s never confronted Putin, and he’s certainly not likely to be doing it now. So Putin understands this. He doesn’t need to be told explicitly by the president what the president would like. And, of course, Putin views Donald Trump, even in the absence of anything more, as the most pro-Russian president we’ve ever had.”

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