Clinton seizing on Trump's Russian business ties
Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story referenced a Newsweek report that the magazine has since corrected. The citation of that story has since been removed from this post.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is seizing on new reports about Donald Trump’s business ties to Russia, saying they may explain positions he's taken friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Thursday, ABC News reported that prospective U.S. sanctions against Russia could be in direct conflict with Trump’s business interests, citing “numerous connections to Russian interests both in the U.S. and abroad.”
Former secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former CIA deputy director Michael Morell held a conference call in which they demanded that Trump detail his financial stake in Russia and vice versa, including by releasing his taxes.
“His interests are in himself, not in the United States,” said Albright, in a call arranged by the Clinton campaign. “He is a gift to Putin, and now we can see that Putin is a gift to him,” she said.
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Trump has said he would hand his business over to his children via what he’s described as a “blind trust" if he is elected president, though critics say that does not remove the potential conflict of interest. In July, Trump wrote on Twitter that he has "zero investments in Russia." He's said his current taxes are under audit, though he is not releasing previous returns that are not.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a Trump campaign senior adviser, responded in a statement, calling the accusations "outlandish and slanderous attacks" that are "signs of desperation from Hillary Clinton's flailing campaign."
"She can't hide from her disastrous record as Secretary of State, where she put the State Department up for sale to Clinton Foundation donors while she subjected America to Obama’s weak foreign policy around the globe. It’s hard to find a part of the world that isn’t less stable than when Hillary took office," said Flynn. "The tens of millions of dollars in foreign contributions to the Clinton Foundation present a dangerous conflict of interest that undermines her ability to serve," he said.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong leader and been been ambivalent about whether he'd defend Baltic nations from Russian aggression. He's also said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meant to be a bulwark against Russian aggression, "may be obsolete." Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, stepped down after stories were published detailing undisclosed cash payments from a pro-Russian political group. Russia's influence in the U.S. election has become especially sensitive as the U.S. is also dealing with suspected Russian cyber attacks on U.S. government and Democratic Party organizations.
“I was struggling with trying to understand why he was taking these positions," said Morell. “The light bulb started to come on," he said. "It seems to me the positions he’s taken," said Morell, "are 100% consistent with his business interests.”
With the first presidential debate just days away, on Sept. 26 in New York, Albright offered advice to moderators: "It would be very useful to just flat-out ask him what he has been involved in and what he considers his financial stake in Russia," she said, "what he sees as Putin’s role in terms of trying to figure out what is happening in Crimea," she said.