Trump praises Putin for not retaliating to Obama

President-elect calls Russian leader 'very smart' in tweet

President-elect Donald Trump praised Vladimir Putin as “very smart” after the Russian leader ruled out a tit-for-tat retaliation for the Obama administration’s expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over cyberattacks aimed at interfering with the U.S. election.

“Great move on delay (by V Putin) — I always knew he was very smart!” Trump wrote on Twitter Friday, hours after Putin said Russia won’t order U.S. diplomats out of the country in reaction to President Barack Obama’s action the day before.

Trump’s message — which was spread over his social media accounts, promoted by his staff and retweeted by the Russian embassy in Washington — opens the potential for a conflict with members of his own party in the US Congress.

While Trump has repeatedly complimented Putin and expressed skepticism that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails, top Republicans have been critical of the Russian president and generally backed Obama’s decision to impose sanctions and oust what he called intelligence operatives working under diplomatic cover.

Putin said in a statement Friday that Russia “won’t send anyone away” after his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was shown on state television recommending the ouster of U.S. personnel. “We won’t descend to the level of irresponsible, kitchen diplomacy,” the Russian president said, adding that further steps to repair relations would depend on Trump’s policies.

Trump has said he wants to cooperate with Putin in fighting terrorism and may review sanctions that Obama imposed over Russia’s involvement in a conflict in Ukraine.

The Russian government, which has denied it was behind the hacking, accused the outgoing US administration of spending its last weeks in power trying to sabotage Trump’s promised outreach to the Kremlin.

Simon Saradzhyan, director of the Russia Matters Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, said Trump’s tweet wasn’t surprising given his past remarks and his stated goal of resetting the U.S. relationship with Russia.

“He has grounds to believe this is a smart move,” Saradzhyan said. “Because if Vladimir Putin had reciprocated, which is usually the norm, that would inevitably constrain Trump’s ability to maneuver because, yes, you can blame everything on the past administration.”

“Putin is looking beyond Obama and he wants to be able to start with Trump from scratch, from a clean state, so not expelling diplomats is a smart move on his part,” he said.

Potential Bind
 

Still, Obama’s actions put Trump in a political bind less than a month before his inauguration. Reversing course would effectively reject the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies and put him at odds with the Republican leaders in Congress who called the sanctions a necessary step.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, called Obama’s moves “a step in the right direction,” saying that “post-Cold War Russia has taken a dark turn under Vladimir Putin.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Thursday that “the Russians are not our friends.”

Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, scheduled a hearing on foreign cyber threats to the U.S. for next week. He and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who serves on the panel, said they would lead an effort in Congress to impose even tougher penalties on Russia than those announced by Obama.

Moving On

In a brief statement Thursday, Trump said that while “it’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” he’ll meet with intelligence officials next week to get their assessment of the Russian hacking.

Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway sought to cast doubt on Obama’s motives.

 The sanctions “seem largely symbolic,” she said Friday on CNN. She noted that many experts have said Obama’s move may put Trump in a corner in attempting to reset the U.S. relationship with Russia. “That would be very unfortunate if politics were the motivating factor here. We can’t help but think that’s often true,” Conway said.

There are no immediate plans for Trump or his representatives to contact Putin’s government before inauguration day, spokesman Sean Spicer added Friday on a conference call with reporters. “The priority right now is for the president-elect to get an update from the intelligence community,” he said.

Obama’s homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, said on MSNBC Thursday that the administration had notified Trump’s team about the White House response before it was announced but there had been no consultation with the president-elect.

Trump’s Skepticism

Trump has repeatedly scoffed at the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was behind the pilfering and steady release of e-mails from Democratic National Committee and party officials in order to damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Trump has said the hacking could have been the work of “somebody sitting in a bed someplace” and told reporters Wednesday that “we ought to get on with our lives” instead of rehashing the cyberattack. Bloomberg