Michael Hayden: Trump is Putin's 'Useful Fool'

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is essentially a "useful fool" for the Kremlin, echoing its words and expressing admiration for President Vladimir Putin, former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.

Citing what he called a simpatico relationship between Trump and Putin, each of whom have expressed admiration for the other's strong leadership qualities, Hayden said each also has a conspiratorial view of the world.

"At the political level, Trump sees quite a few powerful 'others' in the American electoral process: a corrupt media, international banks, unrestricted immigrants, a variety of globalists, free-traders and (at least some) Muslims," Hayden wrote. "It's a list Putin could second or, in some cases, jail or worse."

Hayden also pointed to ties with Russia, which Trump and his associates have denied, including business dealings with Trump's companies and consulting work his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort did for pro-Kremlin Ukranian President Viktor Yanokovych.

Trump also has pooh-poohed U.S. intelligence claims Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails released through WikiLeaks this summer or the private Gmail account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta over the past several days.

Trump also shares a common view with Putin on Syria and the Islamic State (ISIS), Hayden said.

"Here he follows the Moscow line that we and the Russians have common purpose, and that Russia and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad (and Iran) are 'killing ISIS,'" he wrote. "Actually, they are not. They are bucking up the Assad regime that, if anyone is keeping score, has killed more innocents than the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate, have combined."

Noting former acting CIA Director Michael Morell has said Trump is an unwitting agent for Russia, Hayden said he prefers the Soviet-era term polezni durak.

"That's the useful fool," he said, "some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."

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