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When the U.S. House of Representatives considers a bill of impeachment against Donald Trump – as it likely will in the spring of 2019 – the first article will have been written in his meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin this week in Helsinki.

There, in an unprecedented display in great-power summit diplomacy, the president of the United States abdicated his responsibility to defend his country against an attack from a foreign power. The attack came from Russia, which used cyber warfare to try to fix the 2016 presidential election.

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Consider this: The commander-in-chief of the United States stands beside the president of the Russian Federation and absolves him of blame for meddling in a democratic election. Trump asked Putin if he had interfered, Putin said no – Scout’s honour! – and America’s naïf believed him.

Forget the findings of a congressional committee that concluded there was Russian interference. Forget 32 indictments from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including those of 12 Russian agents last week. Forget the body of excellent investigative reporting on Russia, including a cover story on its hackers (”What Putin Really Wants”) in The Atlantic earlier this year.