July 19, 2018

A plan to allow America’s top spy to trigger sanctions against the Kremlin for future election meddling, effectively freezing the White House out of a critical area of foreign policy, is gaining traction in Washington after President Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin.

The effort to empower America’s intelligence agencies amounts to a stinging rebuke of a president who has rattled Republican leaders with his apparent reticence in Helsinki this week to condemn President Putin for the Kremlin’s attempts to subvert US democracy.

Mr Trump appeared to clash with his spy chiefs again yesterday when he said that Russia was no longer targeting American elections. Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said as recently as Monday that the Kremlin was the source of “ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy”.

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/trump-will-be-forced-to-impose-russia-sanctions-jlsvgxsww