In the middle of a hurricane, Donald Trump takes time to meet with Russian Ambassador
At least Donald Trump is leaving no doubt where his priorities are. Even as the United States is still reeling from the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey, and bracing for the impact of the even more powerful Hurricane Irma, Trump is getting ready to head out on vacation for the weekend. Although he can’t be bothered to stay home at the White House to deal with the emergency, he did take time today to meet with the Russian Ambassador.
In a story that feels too on the nose yet is entirely real, Donald Trump met with new Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov today, in order to accept his credentials (link). This meeting could have taken place at any time, yet Trump has decided to do it in the middle of Hurricane Irma. Coupled with the fact that he’s holding the meeting on a Friday afternoon, one could cynically argue that he’s trying to use the hurricane to make sure the news of the meeting gets buried. But it gets worse.
Anatoly Antonov is such a shady character that he’s personally made his way onto international sanctions lists (link). Any legitimate President of the United States would be rejecting Antonov out of hand, and demanding that the Kremlin name an Ambassador who isn’t a James Bond villain. Trump, on the other hand, is making a priority of meeting with this guy. Yet somehow, it gets even worse.
Antonov is replacing Sergey Kislyak, who secretly met several times with Donald Trump and his campaign advisers during the course of the election. Kislyak is former KGB, and is widely suspected of having spearheaded the election collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Just as the investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal was heating up this summer, the Kremlin recalled Kislyak back to Moscow, presumably before he could be questioned. Now it’s replaced him with an even shadier character – and Trump is all too happy to carve out time to meet with the new Russian guy during a major hurricane.
