Trump hints that Kremlin knew of attack beforehand
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Wednesday that Russia may have known of the Syrian government’s plan to gas its own people in advance of a chemical weapons attack last week in northwestern Syria, asserting that U.S. relations with Moscow were at an “all-time low.”
Asked whether it was possible that Syrian forces could have launched the chemical attack without Russia’s knowledge, Trump said: “It’s certainly possible; I think it’s probably unlikely.”
“I would like to think that they didn’t know, but certainly they could have. They were there,” Trump said of the Russians during a news conference at the White House with Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of NATO.
The remarks amounted to an explosive suggestion at a time of heightened tension between the United States and Russia after the chemical attack, which was followed by U.S. missile strikes on the airfield in Syria from which it was launched.
Even as they have intensified their criticism of Russia for backing President Bashar Assad of Syria, other senior Trump administration officials, including Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, and Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, have been careful to say there is no evidence proving that Moscow had foreknowledge the Assad government planned to launch a sarin gas assault.
“Right now, we’re not getting along with Russia at all — we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia,” Trump said on Wednesday. “This has built for a long period of time, but we’re going to see what happens.”
The remarks were the latest evidence of Trump’s turnabout on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, a leader he praised during the presidential campaign but has now moved to isolate since the Syrian chemical weapons attack.