SURPRISE!

(National Sentinel) Presidential: When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced on Friday that special counsel Robert Mueller had indicted 12 more Russians, all of whom work for the GRU, Russia’s intelligence service, we thought he was trying to undermine POTUS Donald Trump ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

So did a lot of others in conservative, pro-Trump media.

We are all reflexively protective of POTUS Trump because he gets such a raw deal in the Left-wing pretend media.

Come to find out, however, it was POTUS himself who instructed Rosenstein to make the announcement just two days before the president sat down with Putin.

Why? Tactics.

POTUS Trump believed that making the announcement before the meeting would give him some additional leverage over the Russian leader.

The Daily Caller reported:

President Donald Trump chose to have the indictments of 12 Russian hackers announced before his Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a Tuesday Bloomberg report.

Trump wanted the indictments announced ahead of the Monday summit to give him leverage over Putin, a source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Tuesday. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave Trump the option of having the indictments released before or after Helsinki, according to the report.

Rosenstein cited national security concerns to allow him to share details of grand jury proceedings with Trump.

Rosenstein announced Friday that a grand jury had indicted 12 Russian intelligence operatives for hacking and releasing Democrats’ emails during the 2016 presidential election. The hackers worked for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, or GRU, according to the indictment.

Trump also walked back an earlier statement when said in Helsinki that he didn’t “see any reason why it would be” Russia behind meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The president said he misspoke, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Thinking back, this makes perfect sense. Though he appears to be acting on his own much of the time in stonewalling Congress’ document requests, this makes two things clear: Trump is in charge and Rosenstein is well aware he serves at the president’s pleasure.

We have also noted that despite the Left-wing hate and hysteria following this week’s Helsinki summit, POTUS knows exactly who and what Putin is. He knows much more about him and Russia than 99 percent of the hacks sniping at him.

He gets the intelligence briefs — though former CIA director and commie hack John Brennan has suggested the intelligence community withhold information from the president — an outrageous dog whistle to like-minded commies in the IC.

Russia is no ‘friend’ of the U.S. and Trump has never said so. In fact, it was Trump who ordered more sanctions against Russia earlier this year, which has led Putin to counter by steadily dumping U.S. debt in what Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge believes is a prelude to China dumping all U.S. debt — which could create a debt crisis for us.

Getting leverage and getting it publicly was a great strategy. It allowed POTUS to stroll into his meetings with some advantage.

But this back-and-forth with Russia isn’t over, it’s just beginning. Engagement is important but so are tactics.

https://thenationalsentinel.com/2018/07/18/surprise-potus-trump-told-rod-rosenstein-to-announce-muellers-indictment-of-12-russians-before-his-meeting-with-putin/