ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE:

"I don't believe they interfered. That became a laughing point; not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say 'Oh, Russia interfered,'" Trump said. "It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey."

Over the past year, Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and the federal investigation into that interference and the possibility that the Trump campaign had abetted it, have been a sore spot for the president. He's called the Russia investigation a "hoax," a "political witch hunt" and "fake news." He said it was a "joke," a "ruse," and "phony." "The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign," Trump insisted. Even after January of 2017, when American intelligence agencies released a report concluding that Russia had interfered in the election on Trump's behalf, both the president and his allies continued to insist that the story was untrue. In his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, Jeff Sessions would not even acknowledge that Russia had interfered. "I have done no research into that. I know just what the media says about it," Sessions testified.

Trump allies weren't the only ones expressing skepticism over the Russia story. "There has been a very extreme dearth of evidence to actually support the claims that have come from the U.S. government," the journalist Glenn Greenwald told Democracy Now in January of 2017. "Unfortunately, there is very little skepticism being applied to the agencies that have repeatedly misled and deceived and lied to the American public."

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals associated with the Internet Research Agency, better known as the Russian "Troll Farm," on charges related to interfering with the 2016 election, leaves little doubt as to the Kremlin's intentions. 

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