The Russian Stoogeby Rich Lowry The circumstantial evidence is…

How else to explain a newly elected president looking the other way after an act of Russian aggression? Agreeing to a farcically one-sided nuclear deal? Mercilessly mocking the idea that Russia represents our foremost geopolitical foe? Accommodating the illicit nuclear ambitions of a Russian ally? Welcoming a Russian foothold in the Middle East? Refusing to provide arms to a sovereign country invaded by Russia? Diminishing our defenses and pursuing a Moscow-friendly policy of hostility to fossil fuels? All of these items, of course, refer to things said or done by President Barack Obama. To take them in order: He reset with Russia shortly after its clash with Georgia in 2008.

Syria fight upends Trump’s image as Russia ally

Increasing tensions with Moscow over U.S. strikes on Syria have complicated the Democrats' argument that President Trump is too close to Russia, even as congressional committees continue to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election and any collusion with the Trump campaign. None of this is likely to lessen the vigor with which Democrats pursue the Russia probe.

Trump has created a new status for toughness that was needed

At the risk of being accused of stating the obvious, the what-ifs of history become increasingly significant when considered in the context of globalization and power politics. One doesn't have to go back to the end of World War I when the mistakes were made in the Treaty of Versailles that led to the rise and ultimate devastation just 20 years later of Nazi Germany to realize that if the allied parties had been more generous in their victory settlement, Hitler and the Third Reich and World War II might have been avoided.

Why Trump’s Syria Strike Will Not End Well

A sign seen at a #HandsOffSyria event in New York City on Friday, April 7. U.S. President Donald Trump claims the objective of his cruise missile strike on Syria is to deter Syrian President Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons again. But six years into Syria's brutal civil war, Trump does not have the luxury of defining his objective that narrowly.

United Nations council weighs compromise on Syria gas attack probe

"Putin views the USA strikes on Syria as aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of worldwide law", Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement disseminated by Russian state TV early Friday. Their compromise text would drop demands that Syria hand over information on its military operations on the day of the strike, replacing them with language from a previous resolution urging cooperation on chemical weapons investigations, diplomats said.

AP News in Brief at 12:03 a.m. EDT

The United States vowed Friday to keep the pressure on Syria after the intense nighttime wave of missile strikes from U.S. ships, despite the prospect of escalating Russian ill will that could further inflame one of the world's most vexing conflicts. Standing firm, the Trump administration signaled new sanctions would soon follow the missile attack, and the Pentagon was even probing whether Russia itself was involved in the chemical weapons assault that compelled President Donald Trump to action.

U.S. fires missiles at Assad airbase; Russia denounces a aggressiona

The United States fired cruise missiles on Friday at a Syrian airbase from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched this week, the first direct U.S. assault on the government of Bashar al-Assad in six years of civil war. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the step his predecessor Barack Obama never took: directly targeting Assad's military with air strikes in punishment for the chemical weapons attack, which killed at least 70 people, many of them children.

Who’s with the US on Syria airstrike and who isn’t

With conflicting interests and competing global powers, the international community remains at an impasse over Syria's six-year conflict. On Friday morning local time, the US military struck a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack, bringing mixed reaction from global players.

Rex Tillerson is making the Trump administration’s first trip to Russia next week

A proxy battle with Russia in Syria and multiple Russia-related investigations in the U.S. will follow Secretary of State Rex to Moscow next week on a trip designed to test the Trump administration's hopes for closer ties to the former Cold War foe. will make the first visit to Russia by a Trump administration official just days after the U.S. launched cruise missiles against an air base in Syria, where Russia's military is on the ground propping up its ally, President Bashar Assad.

Former Trump aide offers to testify

President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, a key figure in investigations into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, has volunteered to be interviewed by lawmakers as part of an increasingly partisan House probe into the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the 2016 election. In this July 17, 2016 file photo, then-Donald Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convent... The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, on Friday announced the prospect of an interview with Paul Manafort, and Nunes canceled a previously scheduled public hearing in which officials in former President Barack Obama's administration had agreed to testify about the Russia investigation.

U.S. probes banking of ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort

U.S. Treasury Department agents have recently obtained information about offshore financial transactions involving President Donald Trump 's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort , as part of a federal anti-corruption probe into his work in Eastern Europe, The Associated Press has learned. Information about Manafort's transactions was turned over earlier this year to U.S. agents working in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network by investigators in Cyprus at the U.S. agency's request, a person familiar with the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss a criminal investigation.

Russian billionaire Deripaska paid Manafort to ‘greatly benefit’…

Before he worked for the Donald Trump presidential campaign, Paul Manafort worked for a Russian billionaire to help promote Russian president Vladimir Putin's agenda in the United States. The White House and Manafort blew off AP's report on Wednesday, but the stench of corruption in the air just keeps getting stronger.

AP Exclusive: Before Trump job, Manafort worked to aid Putin

In this Sept. 19, 2014 file-pool photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska while visiting the RusVinyl plant in Kstovo, in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region.