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The U.S. military and national security officials are scrambling to figure out what Russian asset Donald Trump agreed to do for Vladimir Putin in that two hour and 10 minute private meeting they had on Monday. The Russian ambassador says "Important verbal agreements" were made between the two.
The Russia Defense Ministry is champing at the bit to get going on whatever Trump capitulated to, "ready for practical implementation of the agreements in the sphere of international security reached by Russian and U.S. Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump." What that might be, no one knows for sure. Though we've got some glimmers of it, mostly in the form of Trump possibly agreeing to hand over a former U.S. ambassador to Putin for questioning, a proposal that current and former American diplomats are "at a fucking loss" to comprehend.
So, presumably, are Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Jeff Flake. Rubio blusters in a tweet that "Under no circumstances should #Putin officials ever be allowed to come into the U.S. & 'question' Americans on their list." Then he loses steam with this pathetic rejoinder: "I don't believe this will ever be allowed to happen which is why the @WhiteHouse should publicly & unequivocally rule it out." Who precisely is preventing it from happening isn't clear, because right now there's nobody around keeping Trump from being Trump.
Then there's Flake, who tweets: "The Russian ambassador says that 'important verbal agreements' were reached at the Helsinki summit. What are those commitments, Mr. President? Congress needs to know." As if that'll work, demanding answers from the Russian asset himself.
Yes, Congress and the American people need to know and somebody needs to step in and stop Trump. There aren't a lot of options for that, short of a military coup. So guess who the job is going to have to fall on? The Senate! It's time that this coequal branch of government start acting like one and, again, it's going to have to be the Senate that does it because the House is a fucking mess.
And it's going to have to be Republican senators willing to stand up to their Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to make it happen. They can start with the committee Flake and Rubio's both sit on—Foreign Relations Committee—and demand that the committee subpoena the interpreter that was in that room with Trump and Putin to find out precisely what was said.