Now that opponents of President Trump have seen their impeachment hopes slip away, it is time to examine the most prominent assumption that animated those who suspected Trump of collusion with Russia, which is that Vladimir Putin preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
There is nothing in the record of American relations with Russia under President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to suggest any reason for Putin to prefer Trump. He certainly had no reason to fear Clinton.
It was Clinton, and no representative of Trump, who had traveled to Moscow with a “reset button”� at the start of the Obama administration in 2009. This was the same administration that withdrew promised missile defense systems from Poland and the Czech Republic, and announced it on the 70th anniversary of the German Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
The Obama administration, not the Trump campaign, had invited the Russians back to the Middle East in an armed capacity, giving Moscow a role in that vitally important region that seven previous administrations, Democratic and Republican, had sought to deny.
It was the Obama administration that reacted weakly to Russia infringing on Ukraine, an American ally slated for NATO membership with little protest.
It was Obama, not Jared Kushner, who told the stand in president for Putin, “After my election, I have more flexibility.”� A clearer expression of a desire to collude with the Russians to win an election would be difficult to find. If we believe our intelligence community that there was Russian meddling in 2016, we can say that it was Obama who allowed it.
All of these policies, each of which favored Moscow, pale in comparison to the boost Obama gave to the Russian oil industry, which is the true source of power for Putin. By placing impediments to domestic American oil production, Obama played no small part in making Russia a great power once again, while being governed by someone wholly opposed to American interests in virtually every part of the world. At the same time, Obama era policies strengthened two Russian allies opposed to the United States. These are the leaders of Iran and the dictator of Syria.
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