Donald Trump may have secured a second term in the White House, but his Russia problems are far from over—at least according to suspiciously phrased comments by some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies.
Speaking with Russian state media on Monday, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev noted that while the U.S. election may be over, Trump is still beholden to “certain forces.”
“To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations,” Patrushev told the business daily Kommersant in response to a question about whether the outcome of the presidential election would bode well for Russia. “As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
That statement was elevated by Tass, the Russian news agency.
In a curious follow-up about Trump’s susceptibility to being pressured and influenced, Patrushev made another eyebrow-raising comment: Rather than answer the question directly, the Putin aide made a point to bring up assassination attempts against the president-elect.
“We know of two cases of attempts on his life during the election campaign,” Patrushev told Kommersant. “In general, throughout the history of the United States, attempts have been made on the lives of presidents and candidates regularly—more than 20 times. Four U.S. presidents have died at the hands of assassins while in office. Therefore, it is extremely important for U.S. intelligence agencies to prevent a repetition of such cases.”
Trump’s history with Russia goes way back to the early days of his first campaign. In 2019, former FBI director and Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller noted that Russia had blackmail material on Trump during the 2016 presidential election.
And that relationship appears to be ongoing. On Wednesday, veteran journalist Bob Woodward revealed that he had spoken about the unusual relationship between Trump and Putin several months ago with Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
“It’s so close, it seems like it might be blackmail,” Coats said, according to Woodward.
Woodward also recounted a separate conversation he had with CIA Director Bill Burns, who reportedly emphasized that “Putin manipulates” and is “professionally trained” to do so. According to Woodward, Burns believed that Putin has “got a plan” to repeat what he did during the forty-fifth presidential administration by “playing Trump.”