Trump explains why he's not worried about Putin's killing of journalists and opponents

Donald Trump scaled news heights of absurdity with his latest defense of Russia’s Vladimir Putin over the killing of Russian journalists. When the issue first came up, and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough pointed out to Trump that the man he was praising is “also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries,” Trump’s response was that “He's running his country, and at least he's a leader.” Since this looked awfully much like Trump was endorsing the assassination of journalists, America’s journalists decided to be a little more active in pursuit of follow-up than they often are, and Trump is … explaining, or something.

"Nobody has proven that he's killed anyone. ... He's always denied it. It's never been proven that he's killed anybody,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country. It has not been proven that he's killed reporters." [...]

“If he has killed reporters, I think that's terrible. But this isn't like somebody that's stood with a gun and he's, you know, taken the blame or he's admitted that he's killed. He's always denied it,” Trump added.

Oh, well, if he said he didn’t do it ...

If that’s the standard of guilt or innocence Trump is going to use, we now know that under President Trump, America would no longer have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Somehow, though, I’m guessing this is a special standard to be applied to world leaders who say nice things about Donald Trump.