Trump’s loyalty to Putin is beyond doubt

The moment seemed right to dispel rumours about some nefarious connection to Putin. With the election looming, it was essential for Trump to take one arrow out of the Democrats’ quiver.

All he had to do was issue a statement similar to those made by Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson, Jens Stoltenberg and other Western leaders. Nothing too strident – just a few indignant words about the Navalny poisoning with a toxic compound that only the Russian government possesses and has used before.

And then, in the immediate run-up to the November election, Trump could have mocked the Democrats’ insinuations of links with Putin by citing, and profitably exaggerating, his response to the murder attempt.

A golden opportunity was presented – and missed. For Trump has effectively exonerated Putin and his gang of yet another crime.

“I don’t know exactly what happened,” he said. “It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen.” But: “We haven’t had any proof yet but I will take a look.”

Criminals have been sent to the gallows on much less proof than in this case. The doctors at one of Germany’s top hospitals stated it was “beyond doubt” that Navalny had been poisoned with novichok.

Anyone who has ever had any experiences with medics knows they don’t say such things lightly. Doctors are like lawyers in this respect: they’ll couch every diagnosis in several layers of disclaimers, qualifications and words like ‘may’, ‘however’, ‘likely’ and ‘balance of probability’. So when top doctors say something is beyond doubt, it is.

Is Trump confident of his ability to “take a look” at a medical report and make heads or tails of it? A man who can rarely string a grammatical sentence together doesn’t strike me as a polymath. So what’s he going to take a look at?

Evidence that Putin ordered the hit personally? The sole standard of proof that might conceivably, though not definitely, satisfy Trump would have to come in the shape of a written order signed by Putin. As I mentioned the other day, such a document probably doesn’t exist or, if it does, will never see the light of day until Putin finds himself in the dock.

His KGB training taught Putin not to leave a paper trail. A simple phone call on a secure line would have sufficed for a hitman to crack a novichok ampule open.

Even in the absence of ironclad corroboration, any unbiased court would convict Putin and his gang of a string of political murders, including this attempted one. They are the only ones who have that lapidary forensic triad: motive, means, opportunity – plus exclusive access to novichok. As I said, people have been hanged on less evidence.

Then Trump went even further. Not only should Russia not be charged with this heinous crime, but Russia, and his friend Vlad, should be off limits even as a topic of discussion, never mind criticism.

He went on to say: “It is interesting that everybody’s always mentioning Russia and I don’t mind you mentioning Russia but I think probably China at this point is a nation that you should be talking about much more so.”

Dictating to the press what it should be talking about is an idea Trump must have got from his friend Vlad. And since when do our media concentrate on one subject only? They are perfectly capable of talking about both Russia and China, since both present a clear danger to the world.

However, do let’s keep in mind that China hasn’t occupied anyone’s territory since 1949, when she invaded Tibet. The list of Russia’s aggressive acts committed during the same period would be too tedious to mention.

China’s communist regime is evil, but I haven’t seen many reports of the Chinese poisoning their opponents all over the world. Nor have they been caught trying to subvert Western elections. Nor have they threatened the security of Nato countries, with potentially calamitous consequences.

That China is our enemy is beyond doubt, to use the current phrase. But so is Putin’s Russia, and in my view she’s a deadlier enemy, if only because of her location at the West’s doorstep.

But it’s not just that. Putin is using aggressive imperialism as a legitimising strategy, desperately needed to mollify his impoverished population. If the pinpricks he has engineered so far are found to be insufficiently effective, he may well try something desperate, like attacking one of the Baltics. Under such circumstances the West could do with a leader less sycophantic to the KGB colonel.

I don’t know the nature of the link between Trump and Putin. But the slightest doubts of its existence that anyone might have harboured has been removed. When it comes to dealings with Russia, Trump is definitely not acting as a free agent. This threatens us all.  

Trump’s remarks have been met with triumphant clamour by the Russian news agency Tass. Its name is a Russian acronym that stands for the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union collapsed the agency lost its name, only to regain it in 2014 on Putin’s orders.

This reflects his plans to rebuild the Soviet empire to its erstwhile evil grandeur. Soviet methods of subverting the West are also very much extant, and cultivating ‘useful idiots’ (Lenin’s phrase) has always been prime among them.

At best, that’s what Trump is. I hate to think of what he may be at worst.