SPIES: Russians
conjunction with similar steps by other European nations.
Other countries joining in Monday’s action against Russia included 15 members of the European Union and several former Soviet Baltic states. Germany and France expelled four diplomats each, Poland four, Ukraine 13, Lithuania three.
Canada also joined the coordinated action, saying it would expel four Russians and reject the applications of three others “identified as intelligence officers or individuals who have used their diplomatic status to undermine Canada’s security or interfere in our democracy.”
Jon Huntsman Jr., the Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Russia, said the administration’s decision Monday represented the “largest expulsion of Russian intelligence agents in United States history.”
“Today’s actions make the United States a safer place,” Huntsman said in a videotaped message distributed by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, adding Washington would like to be able to work more cooperatively with Russia but “that will only happen when Russia becomes a more responsible partner.”
In a statement, the White House said President Donald Trump had ordered the expulsions to “make the United States safer by reducing Russia’s ability to spy on Americans and to conduct covert operations that threaten America’s national security.”
The Seattle Consulate was ordered closed because of its “proximity to one of our submarine bases and Boeing,” the statement said.
In language unusually harsh for the Trump administration where Russia is concerned, the statement added that Moscow’s use of a “military-grade chemical weapon” on British soil was the “latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world.”
Notably however, Trump did not immediately make a statement in his own voice. No public appearances were scheduled for Monday, nor did he speak to reporters while at his resort in Florida over the weekend.
And White House principal deputy spokesman Raj Shah, while calling the poison attack “brazen,” said the administration remained open to working with Russia.
“The president wants to work with Russia,” Shah said at the regular White House briefing Monday. “But their actions sometimes don’t allow that to happen.”
Normally a move as monumental as expelling 60 foreign operatives would be accompanied by a formal unveiling by the president or senior officials of his Cabinet.
By early afternoon, Trump had only tweeted twice, once about the economy and the other on an undetermined topic, presumably his alleged affair with an adult film star in 2006: “So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great!”
He has so far refused to personally condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack, instead calling him recently to congratulate him for his victory in a dubious election.
Trump was also slow to publicly acknowledge Russian complicity in the poisoning, which critically injured Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4 in the British city of Salisbury.
A White House official, also briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, insisted the order Monday was “absolutely” Trump’s decision. But it stood in marked contrast to Trump’s own reporting last week of a “very good call” with Putin, and plans to meet him in a summit to discuss “the arms race.” His spokeswoman said at the time the Skripal attack did not “come up” in the call.
Last year, the administration ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco, an iconic building and the oldest Russian diplomatic mission in the U.S. That order left Seattle as the only Russian diplomatic post on the West Coast. It came as part of a titfor-tat dispute between Moscow and Washington over economic sanctions approved overwhelmingly by Congress, but only reluctantly enacted by Trump.