Former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner made the statement on Twitter after a user tweeted a clip from MSNBC in which a host and Kirschner were discussing a Washington Post article published Thursday. That story described “a climate of mistrust and threats” in diplomatic relations between Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. after the so-called Ukraine scandal that led to Trump’s impeachment on December 18.
In the MSNBC appearance, Kirschner linked the new developments in American foreign policy in Ukraine and Russia to the tendency Trump has exhibited in believing Putin, despite U.S. intelligence stating the contrary.
“By continuing to take Putin’s word over that of our own intelligence community professionals, Trump is outsourcing our nation’s security to Putin,” Kirschner wrote in a retweet of the clip. “The danger to our country cannot be overstated.”
On MSNBC, Kirschner referred to three “data points” in which he claimed Trump trusted Putin over U.S. intelligence. The first was when Trump insisted that Russia had not interfered in the U.S. presidential election of 2016–even though U.S. intelligence said that it did–because Putin had assured him so.
“After being briefed by the national security community of the United States, President Trump chose to disregard all of that in favor of saying, ‘Look, Vladimir Putin denied interfering in our elections, and I don’t see why it would be Russia that interfered,’” Kirschner said in the clip.
Secondly, Kirschner said that Trump claimed Putin told him that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the election. The idea that Ukraine interfered has indeed been a theory that Trump and some of his allies have implied carries weight.
Lastly, Kirschner said that the president, while being briefed by intelligence officials about the North Korean ballistic missile threat to the U.S., said that Putin had told him something contrary to what U.S. intelligence said. Kirschner implied that Trump put more stock in Putin’s words.
“The picture that comes into focus is of a president who seems entirely willing to outsource our national security, interests, policy and data to Vladimir Putin,” he said. “And I don’t think there is anybody who could say that’s not extremely troubling and even dangerous to the security of our country.”
Newsweek attempted to contact Kirschner through Homicide Family Advocates, an organization that listed him as its founder and president, for further comment, but did not receive a reply before publication.
In addition to providing legal analysis to both MSNBC and NBC News, Kirschner previously worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office Homicide Division in Washington, D.C., and as a military attorney in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
This is not the first time Kirschner has said something of this sort about Trump and Putin’s relationship. Appearing on MSNBC Tuesday, he said that Putin, in fact, “owned” Trump.
