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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

“I Cannot Understand Putin’s Hold on Trump”

In an exclusive excerpt from his new memoir, H.R. McMaster details the clashes over Russia that led President Trump to fire him as national security adviser.

hr_mcmaster
hr_mcmaster
Chair of the Advisory Board, Japan Chair
Former President Donald Trump and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster walk to the White House June 16, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong via Getty Images)
Caption
Former President Donald Trump and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster walk to the White House June 16, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong via Getty Images)

From the beginning of my time as President ’s national security adviser, in February 2017, I found that discussions of and Russia were difficult to have with the president. Trump connected all topics involving Russia to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the allegations (which were found to be false) that the Trump campaign, including the president himself, had “colluded” with Russia’s disinformation campaign to sway the election toward Trump.

Since Trump’s election, Democrats and others opposed to Trump kept looking for evidence of collusion or corruption with Russians or for compromising information—such as that in the discredited Steele dossier, a document filled with false allegations about Trump that was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and presented to the FBI as fact. All this had created opportunities for the Kremlin.

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