Dr. Jiri Valenta: “We have other important issues on the agenda with Russia and not just Syria. We’ve got a tremendous threat to our national security in North Korea. A nuclear war will also affect Russian territory in the Far East”

Four of the five previous ceasefires had Obama administration fingerprints all over them. “Neither Obama nor Hillary could have made this agreement” Dr. Valenta contends. “The Russians didn’t respect Obama and they didn’t want to deal with Hillary either. It’s clear Putin was waiting for the new administration because they believe he [Trump] can keep a deal and that’s why they wanted him to be president.”

That assertion lends credibility to the allegations of Russian tampering with the 2016 presidential election but Dr. Valenta says playing favorites in US elections is old hat for Russia.

“It’s not a conspiracy” he said. “In 1968 they favored Hubert Humphrey and even offered him financial assistance. In 1976 they favored Gerald Ford.” Dr. Valenta says some time before Ford’s deputy national security advisor William Hyland died in 2008 he confided in Valenta that Ford was shocked when Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev told him before the 1976 election: “I hope you win.”

“The Russians also leaned slightly toward Ronald Reagan because they hated Jimmy Carter so much ” Dr. Valenta says. “So they’ve always had their favorites. Now they have the modern means of showing it through cyber but I’m not so obsessed with that.

“You have to let it go now ” Dr. Valenta adds. “We have other important issues on the agenda with Russia and not just Syria. We’ve got a tremendous threat to our national security in North Korea. A nuclear war will also affect Russian territory in the Far East. Then there’s Ukraine. I still believe Mr. Trump needs to get more involved in this area.”

But it doesn’t appear as if most media outlets and politicians will let it go. The front-page story in the Sunday New York Times reported “Trump Team Met with Lawyer Linked to Kremlin During Campaign.” It sounds sizzling however as the article unfolds the main topic of this “previously unreported meeting” was Russia’s objection to a 2012 US law known as the Magnitsky Act that blacklists suspected Russian human rights violators. Putin retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children. It’s one of many thorny issues between the two countries but hardly the stuff that should keep a conspiracy theorist up at night.

The only one who can seemingly put an end to this saga is special prosecutor Robert Mueller who has an open-ended time frame in which to investigate Trump his family and any other actors in the Russian saga who could have run afoul of the law.

Two months ago Jonathan Tobin argued in the National Review that special prosecutors quickly become attached to the extraordinary power they’ve been granted and therefore the probe would be better handled by a bipartisan commission of Democrats and Republicans. “What the country needs is answers about Trump and Russia not a probe that will last for years and probably never do much to resolve the public’s questions about the 2016 election.” (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 668)