Do not congratulate.

So wrote White House National Security Aids in talking points for President Trump this week

when he decided to call Vladimir Putin after his re-election as Russia's president.

There was a reason the NSC Aids wrote those words.

Putin had jailed one of his leading rivals, he had suppressed dissidents, one of the most

prominent had been assassinated on a bridge in the shadow of the Kremlin three years ago,

and given the timing, coming just days after the British government accused the Russians

of a murder by Poison Plot on British soil, it seemed to many inside the White House that

this was not the time to be co-zing up to America's most menacing adversary.

And yet that's exactly what President Trump did this week, calling up Putin, congratulating

him, and choosing not to confront him about the nerve-agent poisoning of a former Russian

spy in the United Kingdom.

It was a very good call, Trump said, after he spoke to Putin.

But was it a good call for America?

We'll explore that question with a leading Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee,

and delve into the Committee's conclusion, at least the conclusion by the Republicans

on that panel, that there was no conclusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin,

on today's episode of Skolduggery.

There is absolutely no collusion.

I didn't make a phone call to Russia.

I have nothing to do with Russia.

Everybody knows it.

...