As recounted by President Donald Trump on Fox News, “one of the most interesting things” Russian President Vladimir Putin told him was “‘your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.’”

“He said, ‘You won that election by so much... and if you would have won, we wouldn’t have had a war, we’d have all of these millions of people alive now instead of dead,’” Trump said on Sean Hannity’s show on Friday night. “And he said, ‘and you lost it because of mail-in voting, it was a rigged election.’”

The Kremlin did not immediately confirm Trump’s account and he has been known to confabulate conversations that could not have possibly occurred.

But the supposed exchange with Putin is exactly what Trump would have most wanted to hear. And, as a former senior U.S. intelligence official noted on Monday, Putin remains a KGB agent at his icy core.

“As an intelligence officer, it becomes innate when you size somebody up to assess their vulnerabilities, their needs, their desires, and then figure out which ones to exploit,” the former official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Daily Beast on Monday. “In Trump’s case, he’s an open book. His vulnerability is ego, his need is petting, and his desire is to look powerful. So, you know, Putin is figuring out how to j--- him off. “


To say that Trump colluded with Russia suggests there was some secret understanding. Much more likely than collusion, there was manipulation of Trump by Putin, of a ruse by a veteran spy turned tyrant.

“Trump, oh, my God, this guy for an intelligence officer is a dream machine,” the former official told the Daily Beast. “All you have to........

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