CNN’s Shawn Turner: By Asking Putin If He Meddled Trump’s Sending a Strong Message He Doesn’t Believe His National Security Apparatus

RUSH EXCERPT: 

TURNER: “So I think it’s more of the same. The indictment is very clear that there are individuals who are associated with — or potentially associated with a Trump campaign who may have worked with the Russians. And the president has been very clear in his condemnation of the intelligence community’s work related to the Russia investigation. So the fact that this indictment comes out and that the president on the very same day says, oh, well, I’ll ask Putin about it, and he doesn’t say anything about the hard work of the intelligence community or the intelligence community assessment is very startling to the intelligence community. One of the things that I think is really very telling here is when the intelligence community — the intelligence community exists to present the facts to the president to the best of their knowledge. And in this case, it is extremely rare to have a case in which you have an overwhelming amount of evidence that something happened. In this case, an overwhelming amount of evidence that the Russians interfered in the election. And so the president has basically said to the intelligence community, I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to talk to others to determine whether or not you did your homework correctly. And I think that’s something that everybody who’s concerned about national security should take to heart. And the president should really understand that by asking Vladimir Putin whether or not he — whether or not he interfered in the election, he’s sending a very strong message that he really does not believe that his national security apparatus has the ability to collect the information that’s necessary to protect the country.”