President Donald Trump responded with what was likely the last thing anybody expected when he was challenged by an Associated Press reporter to say if he believes American intelligence or Vladimir Putin on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

The questions came just days after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence service officers for allegedly seeking to influence the presidential contest that pitted Trump against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The indictment was the latest move in Mueller’s probe of allegations that aides to Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian interests in 2016.

“So let me just say that we have two thoughts: You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee [DNC]? I’ve been wondering that,” Trump said.

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“I’ve been asking that for months and months, and I’ve been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know, where is the server and what is the server saying? … I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server.”

Trump continued, “But I have — I have confidence in both parties. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don’t think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They’re missing. Where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton’s emails? Thirty-three thousand emails gone, just gone.”

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It was as if Trump either completely misunderstood the question — or chose intentionally to ignore it in order to make his statement about the server and the Clinton emails.

In any case, Trump’s response instantly sent CNN’s Anderson Cooper and former President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan spiraling to new levels of extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“You have been watching perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit in front of a Russian leader certainly that I’ve ever seen. An extraordinary press conference,” Cooper said immediately after the Helsinki conference ended.

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“Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???” Brennan tweeted at the same time.

Cooper and Brennan undoubtedly set the narrative tone for the liberal mainstream media and the legions of self-serving former Obama administration officials — Trump was a disgrace, a traitor, deserving of impeachment.

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But that tone conveniently ignores Trump’s most explicit attempt yet to focus attention on what may well be the weak spot in the armor of anti-Trump fanatics going all-out to destroy his presidency. If U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials were convinced it was Russians who hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, why didn’t they demand those servers be turned over to them to determine what the Russians were after?

Trump didn’t say so, but why else would he have used a moment when the eyes of the world were on him and Putin to raise the question yet again of what was on the DNC’s server and why the FBI didn’t demand it be turned over — unless he has an idea of the answer?

Consider these facts:

Former British spy Christopher Steele, author of the infamous Trump/Russia dossier, has extensive links to Russian interests with close ties to that country’s intelligence networks. What are the specifics of those links?

Steele’s work in compiling the dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC at a time that she controlled it. Why did she agree to lay out money (campaign funds?) for Steele’s work, and how was this payment agreement negotiated?

The cutout for the Clinton campaign and the DNC to make those payments to Steele via Fusion GPS was the Washington, D.C., law firm Perkins Coie, well-known for its role in defending Democrats. Who retained the firm, when did they retain it, and on what terms?

Former congressional Democrat IT aide Imran Awan had access to the DNC’s server via the personal laptop of then-DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Clinton’s chosen DNC chief), and to the server of the House Democratic Caucus via his work for then-Rep. Xavier Becerra. How many of the 33,000 destroyed Clinton emails were on those servers?

There is evidence Awan has ties to Pakistan’s infamous intelligence service, which is notorious for playing both sides of every international conflict, including the U.S. and Russia. Is this why DOJ recently flatly contradicted the claims of the House sergeant-at-arms and chief administrative officer that Awan represented a serious national security threat?

Neither Cooper, nor Brennan, nor any of the rest of the mainstream media voices screaming for Trump’s impeachment will address those facts because they don’t want to know the answers.

That’s also why they will never ask Mueller or former FBI Director James Comey or former Attorney General Loretta Lynch why they didn’t do whatever was necessary as soon as the alleged Russian hacking was known to have occurred to gain possession of those servers at the center of Russian collusion scandal.

But unless and until those questions are answered, the American people will never have a complete understanding of who colluded with the Russians to sway the outcome of the 2016 president contest.

Don’t expect Trump to stop demanding the answers.