McFaul drawn into center of Trump-Russia flap
WASHINGTON — When Michael McFaul served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow under the Obama administration, he unexpectedly found himself the subject of a concerted Russian propaganda campaign, accused of plotting to overthrow leader Vladimir Putin as well as pedophilia.
It was in many ways a sign of the geopolitical times: a U.S. attempt to “reset” ties with Russia was collapsing, and as the face and voice of America in the Russian capital, McFaul was a ready target.
McFaul’s two-year tenure as ambassador ended in 2014. But the 54-year-old ex-envoy, now an academic at Stanford University, got a jolting reminder this week that the Russian strongman hasn’t forgotten him — far from it.
At a summit in Helsinki, Finland, with President Donald Trump, Putin floated the idea of inviting Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, to interview a dozen Russian intelligence officials indicted in the United States last week as part of the Mueller probe.
In return, Putin wanted Russian authorities to be allowed to interrogate a roughly equal number of Americans, including McFaul, for supposed illicit activities. At Monday’s post-summit news conference with Putin at his side, Trump — sounding intrigued rather than indignant — called that an “incredible” offer.
The proposal — and Trump seeming to entertain the idea — drew a formal rebuke Thursday from the Senate, which approved a nonbinding resolution, 90-0, against allowing Russia to question McFaul or other current and former U.S. officials.
The White House had backtracked shortly before the vote, with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters that Trump “disagrees” with the idea of such an investigatory exchange, but believed Putin had extended the proposal in “sincerity.”
“I don’t consider it ‘sincerity’ to falsely accuse U.S. government officials of being criminals,” McFaul tweeted in response.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been blunter about the prospects of any such handover, telling reporters earlier Thursday: “That’s not going to happen.”
But to a wide array of American lawmakers, former diplomats, fellow academics and much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, Trump’s initial response to Putin’s proposal — “incredible” — was the right word, for all the wrong reasons.
As details of the Helsinki tete-a-tete emerged this week, social media lit up with expressions of solidarity for McFaul — and consternation that an American president would not immediately shut down the idea of giving over a onetime ambassador for questioning.
McFaul, a Montana native educated at Stanford and Oxford, was known during his Russia days as an online pioneer among the diplomatic corps, authoring an ambassadorial blog and engaging in exchanges with ordinary Russians. As the week’s contretemps unfolded, he took to Twitter to express his shock and disbelief.
“When Trump says Russia is no longer targeting America, that’s not how this American feels,” McFaul wrote. “Putin is most certainly targeting and intimidating me. And I’m an American.”
He also decried what he called the “moral equivalency” being posited by Putin between the Mueller investigation and Russia’s desire to summon him and figures like U.S.-born financier Bill Browder for questioning.
The outcry over McFaul and the others sought by Putin echoed a larger dispute over Trump’s acceptance — later partially walked back — of the Russian leader’s word over that of the U.S. intelligence community, which has reignited critics’ suspicions that Putin has some hold over the U.S. president.