Spin City: Facing critics who call his words in Helsinki “treasonous,” President Trump claims he misspoke when he failed to confirm the assessment of US intelligence that the Russians hacked the US election.

“The sentence should have been ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’ sort of a double negative,” he said. “So you can put that in and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself. I have on numerous occasions noted our intelligence findings that Russians attempted to interfere in our elections.”

Trump has never fully endorsed those findings and said of the hackers yesterday, “It could be a lot of other people also. There are a lot of people out there.”

Trump also tweeted — as if he would ever admit failure — “The meeting between President Putin and myself was a great success, except in the Fake News Media!” So it’s the fault of the press that he completely screwed the pooch in Helsinki.

Exactly what Trump said in Helsinki about Russian hackers was the following: “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. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” It was completely clear that he was siding with Putin’s denial.

Trump’s “clarification” came not minutes, but more than 24 hours after he spoke following a private one-on-one meeting with Putin.

Speaking yesterday before a meeting with Republican leaders at the White House, Trump told reporters, “I have full faith in our intelligence agencies.” Just as he said “full faith,” the lights went out. “Must be the intelligence agencies,” he joked. We think.

The Manchurian Candidate: President Trump’s defense of Russia in Helsinki had politicians and the chattering classes talking about whether he had committed treason. Some extreme critiques say he is behaving like a mole working for Russia. That was the suggestion of  Texas Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA operative, who said, “I’ve seen Russian intelligence manipulate many people over my professional career and I never would have thought that the US President would become one of the ones getting played by old KGB hands.”

The Constitutional definition of treason is broad and a little vague: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

While resident Trump is not waging war against the United States, it can be argued that speaking in Helsiki he ‘adhered” to and gave a form of “Aid and Comfort” to the enemy. But his words lacked an affirmative act, unless he has acted secretly to aid Russia.

It’s unlikely that the Republican majority will move against their president and it’s possible that, as I with all things Trump, nothing he says or does will turn his loyal followers against him. For just about everyone else, Trump is a national disgrace and a late night punchline. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel said, “If you’re wondering whether or not Vladimir Putin has an incriminating video of Donald Trump, we now know beyond a treasonable doubt that he does.”

The Tacky Charisma of Wealth: What may be most important in American politics is not what’s being said on the liberal left, but what’s coming from the right and Donald Trump’s own party. Conservative columnist George Will is one of the influential voices from the right who has turned vehemently against Trump.

After the Helsinki bombshell, in a column titled “This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man,” Will wrote speculatively about what it is that motivates Trump to play gently with Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Will said, “Americans elected a president who — this is a safe surmise — knew that he had more to fear from making his tax returns public than from keeping them secret. The most innocent inference is that for decades he has depended on an American weakness, susceptibility to the tacky charisma of wealth, which would evaporate when his tax returns revealed that he has always lied about his wealth, too. A more ominous explanation might be that his redundantly demonstrated incompetence as a businessman tumbled him into unsavory financial dependencies on Russians. A still more sinister explanation might be that the Russians have something else, something worse, to keep him compliant.”

Strongman Politics: Without mentioning his successor by name, President Obama delivered a speech yesterday in which he denounced “strongman politics.” He said, “Look around, strongman politics are ascendant suddenly, whereby elections and some pretense of democracy are maintained, the form of it, but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning.”

Speaking in South Africa at an event honoring Nelson Mandela, Obama said we are in “strange and uncertain” times and that “each day’s news cycle is bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines.”

Google It: The European Union hit Google with a $5.1 billion fine for violating EU anti-trust rules. They accused Google of making deals with phone manufacturers like HTC, Huawei, and Samsung that require them to feature its search bar and Chrome browser, boxing out competitors.

The Science Digest: Science and astronomy pioneer Galileo identified the first of Jupiter’s moons 400 years ago. Discovering Jupiter’s moons has been a thing ever since. Astronomers recently spotted a dozen more, bringing the total to 79. They had better equipment than the great Italian. They used the 4-meter Victor Blanco telescope in Chile. One of the moons is just 1 kilometer wide. They call it an “oddball.”

-30-