The eagle vs the parrot

Credibility of investigative agencies is the key

US President Donald Trump’s wooden retraction of his statement in Finland publicly disowning his country’s intelligence agencies speaks volumes about the power and respect these institutions command in their country. The denial, which was scripted and grudgingly delivered, was prompted by the outpouring of strongly-worded protests, not just from expected opponents — the liberal press and Democrats — but also from supporters within the Republican establishment and even an anchor of the president’s most faithful media mouthpiece, Fox News. The world has become accustomed to Mr Trump’s uninformed and crass public performances, and he had not disappointed at the Nato summit, and in the UK before the Finland summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin. But even by those low standards, the performance at the joint press conference was unique. To hold a no-aides, closed-door meeting with a man who is suspected of orchestrating cyberwar against the US and with whom his campaign is accused of colluding is novel.

To see an American president actually wink at Mr Putin at the start of the press conference, just days after US investigative agencies indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 presidential election belies belief. But to have him stand beside the same leader and suggest he believed him rather than his own investigative agencies amounted to not treason but something close to it. This is what he said at Helsinki: “My people came to me. They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” After a barrage of condemnation for undermining his own intelligence agencies’ assessments — that too on foreign soil — his advisors compelled him to retract. He had misspoken, he said, his disclaimer was disingenuous: The word “would” should have been “wouldn’t”. Obviously, no one was satisfied by this “double-negative” denial, not least because Mr Trump did not retract any of the scorn he has heaped on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the justice department for investigating his election campaign’s links with Russia.  

For India, two points are worth noting from this controversy. The first is the extraordinary degree of public credibility that the State’s investigative department and the judiciary command across the political spectrum. The second is the level of independence these agencies enjoy, that would turn the officers of India’s own investigative agencies green with envy. It is remarkable that the investigation into Mr Trump’s campaign collusion with Russia continues even though he is in power and enjoys near-unfettered executive powers, a situation unimaginable in India where the Central Bureau of Investigation’s sleuths are compelled to follow political diktats. Although Mr Trump dismissed the FBI chief, James Comey, for declining to pledge personal loyalty to the president, he has been restrained by his advisors from doing the same to Robert Mueller, the special counsel tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections, on grounds of ethics and propriety. It is rare to see our leaders abstain from interfering with the CBI on such grounds. Irrespective of Mr Trump’s very public disavowal of their work in Finland, the Justice Department arrested and charged a Russian national, who had links with the notorious National Rifle Association and with senior members of the Republican party, with secretly working as a foreign agent on Monday. The American eagle, it appears, soars on the wings of autonomy where the Indian parrot remains caged by political compulsion.