As he approaches another election next month, Russian President Vladimir Putin must be chortling in his afternoon tea or evening vodka.

Putin stands to be elected for the fourth time, with a large majority in a quasi-democratic election -- only partly democratic when a leader arrests his strongest opponent and tightly controls the media.

And Putin benefits from having an American president, many members of the Republican majority in Congress and a major news outlet, Fox News, in his back pocket.

What else can one conclude from the following developments, after heavy-handed Russian intervention in the 2016 election:

· President Donald Trump just blocked imposition of stiff sanctions against Russia that were approved by a vast majority of Congress. Little reaction from Congress or Fox commentators.

· Trump continues to condemn the investigation of Russian intervention in the election -- not the intervention -- despite confirmation of the full-bore cyber attacks and his own aides pleading guilty to lying about Russian contacts.

· Trump's own son, Donald Trump Jr., held secret meetings with leading Russians during the campaign to gain Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. And he lied about it.

· Trump repeatedly impugns the patriotism and integrity of major institutions in the U.S. government, particularly the FBI and the CIA (whose agents he has called "Nazis,") and regularly shows disdain for the U.S. Constitution and key protections of a free press and freedom of religion.

· After release of a classified memo that questioned an FBI probe of a Trump aide with close brushes with Russian spies, a release that Trump eagerly backed, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: "The Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in our election and undermine American democracy." Noting Trump's criticism of the FBI, McCain added: "If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's work for him."

· Trump's business empire, once wobbly from multiple bankruptcies and the 2007-2008 meltdown, drew heavily on investments and purchases by wealthy Russian oligarchs, many close friends of Putin's.

· Trump, as candidate and president, has repeatedly embraced the Russian leader despite his own security strategy's description of Russia as a major threat to American interests. Under Putin, Russia committed the only major aggression in Europe since World War II in its seizure of Crimea and intervention in Ukraine.

Perhaps just as bizarre as Trump's cozy attitude toward Russia are the actions of many Republicans in Congress and on Fox News. Here are people who in past decades turned purple and vociferous in their attacks on basically the same country. Today, many GOP members and Fox News commentators are quick to defend Trump and his stance toward Russia even though Russia retains many attributes of the Communist empire.

The special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election will come to its climactic finish in time. Collusion? Obstruction of justice? Impeachment? No charges? It is too early to predict.

But a more serious charge against the 45th president could be looming if he continues to speak and act as if Russia were America's best ally.

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them [the states plural], or, in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is no longer considered an "enemy" of the United States. It is, according to the recent defense strategy a "revisionist" power that poses a major threat to "the security and prosperity of the U.S." But one more aggressive act could revert us back to Cold War relations.

And guess who just threw around the charge of treason as if it were an everyday allegation? Trump. And he set a low bar. In an appearance Monday, he said Democrats may have acted "treasonously" when they did not applaud his much-faulted tax reform package during the State of the Union address.

However, it is Trump who is enmeshed in an investigation into whether a foreign nation meddled in the presidential election to his benefit. Damning evidence against Trump and his friendly behavior toward Russia emerged last week. On the program Fresh Air, a respected Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, said that the highly classified information that Trump disclosed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last May in the White House was extremely secret.

Bergman said that senior Israeli intelligence agents were warned in late 2016 by American counterparts that "Trump or some of his people [may be] under leverage from the Russians." Then, Bergman added, "just a few months after that ... all the predictions came to be true. I know the nature of that information. It is indeed delicate, and very, very secret. It could jeopardize the modus operandi of Israeli intelligence."

A president has broad authority to declassify government secrets. Yet that authority has little to do with whether he acted recklessly and gave "aid and comfort" to a dangerous adversary. Be careful, Mr. President, we don't know where the Russia investigation will yet end up.

Frederic B. Hill, a former correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, served as director of foreign affairs to Sen. Charles McC. Mathias Jr., former Republican of Maryland. He is co-editor of "The Life of Kings, The Baltimore Sun and the Golden Age of the American Newspaper."

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