Has Trump fallen victim to the ‘Ras-Putin Effect’? 

Kremlin leader Joseph Stalin and his intelligence chief Lavrentiy Beria, who headed KGB forerunner the NKVD, were the two deadliest Russians in history. Like Mao, they were responsible for the deaths of millions of their own citizens.
President Vladimir Putin has served in both entities.
Grigori Rasputin was an extremely evil mentor to Nicholas II, who was known to have great influence over the tsar. The remarkable but hidden scope of that influence has been dubbed the “Rasputin Effect”.
Good evidence is now emerging that Putin has a Rasputin-type control over President Trump. After a closed-doors meeting of more than two hours in Helsinki last week, Trump sided with Putin in denying that Moscow had meddled in the 2016 US presidential election he won. In doing so he went against the universal verdict of his own US intelligence agencies. After a bipartisan backlash, he made a risible retraction by claiming that, “In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t’.” 
The Russians have also hailed key military agreements reached in the one-on-one private meeting between the two leaders, including on Syria. That news came as a surprise to the US military commander for the Middle East and raised suspicions that Trump had secretly surrendered to the brutal Russia-backed dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.  
In the press conference afterwards, Putin appeared almost embarrassed by the “Good ole boy” gestures made towards him by President Trump.
The situation is not good!
Our executive branch is a wreck.
Our legislative and judicial branches are dithering.
I think the Russians likely elected President Trump and, perversely, he is now paying them back.
The United States needs positive action NOW.
I wish I had an answer, but I do not. We could, though, ask one question: What would our constitutional forefathers have done?
Al in Asia