"A Benedict Arnold moment." US Navy vet rips Trump for betraying America on Veterans Day

When confronted by reporters about Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump had a choice: He could side with U.S. intelligence agencies who overwhelmingly declared that Russia did, in fact, attack our democracy.

Or he could side with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

On Veterans Day, Donald Trump sided with the Russians over America.

“He [Putin] said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump told reporters. “Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

Incidentally, the Kremlin immediately dismissed Trump’s statements, saying that he and Putin didn’t even discuss the topic of election interference.

And in a particularly repugnant move, Trump lashed out at retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, calling him a “political hack.”

That Trump would take Putin’s word over his own intelligence community is appalling. And that he would attempt to smear a decorated veteran on Veterans Day makes it all the more repugnant.

U.S. Navy veteran and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance made it very clear just how unpatriotic Trump’s attitude truly is.

On MSNBC Saturday morning, Nance discussed the bombshell report that Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn participated in a plot to kidnap a Turkish dissident cleric and deliver him to a Turkish prison.

“This goes hand-in-hand” with the entire story surrounding Russian hacking of the U.S. election and the potential collusion on the part of the Trump campaign, Nance noted, considering Flynn’s “seeming involvement with the Russian foreign minister.”

“We have moved so far away from them being a whole bunch of ‘innocents abroad’ and just looking out for their own personal interests,” he stated.

“I’m really flabbergasted,” he continued. “I really think that we are at a national-level Benedict Arnold moment going on here. We have a President literally, literally, on Veterans Day, insulting the entirety of U.S. intelligence and siding with a former director of the FSB [Russian intelligence].”

And he was clear about what all of this means.

“All of this together … shows me that there was a continuing criminal enterprise and Russia is at the center of it, and the president has violated his oath by maintaining this fraud that none of this is true.”

“And when it’s borne out, it’s going to be well past impeachable,” Nance declared.

Even the CIA threw Trump under the bus, standing by their assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 election:

CIA today: “The Director stands by and has always stood by the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment entitled: Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections. The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed.” https://t.co/m0ZibV41PO

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 11, 2017

Trump’s continued lying about Russian interference only raises more questions about the depth of his campaign’s involvement with the Russian meddling, and the administration’s cover-up attempts.

The investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller has already resulted in the arrest of three high-level former Trump campaign officials. Foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the FBI about Russian contacts, and former campaign manager Paul Manafort has been indicted, alongside his associate Rick Gates, on multiple counts, including, “conspiracy against the United States.”

But while Trump spent Veterans Day insulting Americans, this is how Nance observed the occasion:

This Veteran Day I honor the 100th anniversary of WWI service in US Army Expeditionary Force France for my: Grandfather Jewitt Nance, Kilo Co. 301st Stevedore regiment & Granduncle Wilton Nance, Teamster, Alpha Co. 314th Sevice regiment. Brest-Champagne-Marne/Meuse Argonne pic.twitter.com/qnC2djq4F1

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) November 11, 2017

Donald Trump couldn’t refrain from attacking Americans — and veterans — on Veterans Day. Yet more proof of how thoroughly un-American his entire presidency has been.