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I feel like we sort of choked. That is the killer quote in an extraordinary Washington Post investigation into how Barack Obama responded to intelligence last year that Russia was running a sophisticated influence operation against the 2016 elections.

Its attributed to a former senior Obama administration official, but it captures the view of many Democrats and now many opportunistic Republicans. President Donald Trump got in on the action Monday morning when he tweeted: The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling.

Its tempting to grant Trump this point, despite Trumps own insistence during his campaign that there was no evidence Russia meddled in the election at all. Obama was the commander-in-chief when Moscow hatched this operation. It was his duty to defend our election.

But this isnt entirely fair. To start, by the time the CIA had gathered the intelligence in August about how President Vladimir Putin himself was trying to elect Trump over Hillary Clinton, the servers of the Democratic National Committee and other leading Democrats were already breached. Obamas government did inform state election officials about the prospect of hacking of voter rolls and helped make them more resilient. In the end, the Russians spread fake news and distributed the messages they hacked. They had the good fortune of a Republican candidate willing to amplify the pilfered emails. But there is no evidence that Russia changed the vote tallies or took voters off the registration rolls.

Whats more, Trump himself had in the final weeks of the election suggested the vote itself would be rigged. Had Obama been more public in warning about the Russian influence operation, he would risk undermining the legitimacy of the election in the eyes of Trumps supporters, essentially aiding Russias plan to undermine it before any votes were cast.

Rather than asking why Obama didnt do more to stop Russian meddling, the better question is why Putin thought he could get away with this interference in the first place. In every respect, the U.S. is more powerful than Russia. It has a much larger economy. Its military is superior. Its cyber capabilities are greater. Its diplomatic position is stronger. So why did Putin believe he could treat America like it was Estonia?

The answer is that Obama spent the first six years of his presidency turning a blind eye to Russian aggression. In his first term, Obama pursued a policy of reset with Moscow, even though he took office only five months after Russia had annexed two Georgian provinces in the summer of 2008. In the 2012 election, Obama mocked his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, for saying Russia posed a significant threat to U.S. interests. Throughout his presidency, Obamas administration failed to respond to Russian cheating on arms-control agreements. His diplomacy to reach an agreement to temporarily suspend progress on Irans nuclear program made the U.S. reliant on Russian cooperation for Obamas signature foreign policy achievement.

In the shadows, Russian spies targeted Americans abroad. As I reported in 2011 for the Washington Times, Russias intelligence services had stepped up this campaign of harassment during the reset. This included breaking into the homes of NGO workers and diplomats. In one case, an official with the National Democratic Institute was framed in the Russian press on false rape charges. In 2013, when the Obama administration appointed Michael McFaul to be his ambassador in Moscow, the harassment got worse. McFaul complained he was tailed by cameramen from the state-owned media every time he left the Embassy for an appointment. He asked on Twitter how the network seemed to always know his private schedule.

The Washington Post reported that these incidents continued throughout the Obama administration. In June 2016, a CIA officer in Moscow was tackled and thrown to the ground by a uniformed guard with Russias FSB, the successor agency of the KGB.

In 2011, the former Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Christopher Kit Bond, told me: Its not the intelligence committee that fails to understand the problem. Its the Obama administration.

This lax approach to Russia was captured in the memoir of Obamas former defense secretary, Robert Gates. He wrote that Obama at first was angry at his FBI director, Robert Mueller, and his CIA director, Leon Panetta, for recommending the arrest in 2010 of a network of illegal Russian sleeper agents the FBI had been tracking for years.

The president seemed as angry at Mueller for wanting to arrest the illegals and at Panetta for wanting to exfiltrate the source from Moscow as he was at the Russians, Gates wrote. He quoted Obama as saying: Just as were getting on track with the Russians, this? This is a throwback to the Cold War. This is right out of John le Carre. We put START, Iran, the whole relationship with Russia at risk for this kind of thing? Gates recounts that the vice president wanted to ignore the entire issue because it threatened to disrupt an upcoming visit from Russias president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev.

After some more convincing, Obama went along with a plan to kick the illegal spies out of the country in exchange for some Americans. But the insight into the thinking inside his Oval Office is telling.

Eventually, Obama responded to Russian aggression after its stealth invasion of Ukraine in 2014. He worked closely with European allies to impose sanctions on Russia for their violation of Ukraines sovereignty. But he never agreed to sell the Ukrainians defensive weapons. In the final years of his presidency, as Wired magazine has recently reported, the Russians engaged in bold cyberattacks against Ukraines electric grid. So far, the U.S. has not responded openly to that either.

Even after Russias invasion of Ukraine, the Obama policy toward Russian aggression was inconsistent. As Foreign Policy magazine reported in May, Obamas State Department slow-rolled a proposal from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations to lay out a set of options to punish Russias client Syria for its use of chlorine bombs against its own citizens in 2014. Russia and the U.S. forged the agreement in 2013 to remove chemical weapons from the country. In the same year, the Obama administration did nothing to deter Russia from establishing air bases inside Syria, preferring instead to support John Kerrys fruitless efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement with Russia in Syria. That inaction now haunts the U.S. as Russia declared its own no-fly zone this month in Syria, after U.S. forces shot down a Syrian jet.

All of this is the context of Putins decision to boldly interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections. Perhaps Putin would have authorized the operation even if Obama had responded more robustly to Russias earlier dirty tricks and foreign adventures. But its easy to understand why Putin would believe he had a free shot. Russia probed American resolve for years.

When Obama finally did respond, it was too late to save Ukraine and too late to protect our election.

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist.

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Obama 'choked' on Russia long before the 2016 election - Bangor Daily News

Former US president Barack Obama (left) talked to Indonesian President Joko Widodo (right) during their meeting at the Botanical Garden near the Presidential Palace complex in Bogor, Indonesia.

BOGOR, Indonesia (AP) Former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family arrived Friday in his childhood home of Jakarta on the end of a 10-day vacation in Indonesia, where they visited ancient temples and went whitewater rafting.

Local television news channels broadcast live coverage of the familys arrival in the capital.

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Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo met Obama at the Bogor Palace in West Java, a grand Dutch colonial building about 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Jakarta that is famous for its botanical gardens and a herd of spotted deer that roam the grounds.

The two jumped into a golf cart with Jokowi at the wheel and headed off to a cafe nestled inside in the lush gardens.

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Many Indonesians have drawn comparisons between Jokowi and Obama, who were both highly popular during their election campaigns.

After becoming president, many here viewed Obama as a native son and saw him as a symbol of hope and religious tolerance because of his years living in the worlds most populous Muslim country.

A statue of the boy still remembered as Barry by childhood friends was erected outside the elementary school he once attended in the capitals upscale, leafy neighborhood of Menteng.

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This is the last opportunity for us to meet with Barry, our childhood friend who has made us so proud, said Widianto Cahyono, who sat next to Obama in the fourth grade and is hopeful the former president will visit his old neighborhood. We have long waited for a reunion with him.

AP

Former US President Barack Obama walked during his visit to Prambanan Temple in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Obama also retains a soft spot for Indonesia, where he lived from age 6 to 10. He moved to Jakarta in 1967 after his mother split up with his father and remarried an Indonesian man. They had his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who is traveling with the family.

After her second marriage failed, Obamas mother, Ann Dunham, stayed on in Indonesia and Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents.

During a 2010 presidential visit, he delighted onlookers by proclaiming in Bahasa Indonesia that bakso, a savory meatball soup, and nasi goreng, flavorful fried rice, are delicious. They are two of the countrys signature dishes.

Prior to arriving in Jakarta, Obama, his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia visited the resort island of Bali where they stayed in the tranquil mountain enclave of Ubud, touring sweeping terraced rice paddies and rafting the Ayung river. They then traveled to the historic city of Yogyakarta, where Obamas mother did anthropology research, and visited Borobudur, a ninth century Buddhist temple complex, as well as the ancient Prambanan Hindu temple compound.

Obama is scheduled to speak at an Indonesian Diaspora Congress in Jakarta on Saturday.

BOY TRIHARJANTO/european pressphoto agency

Former US president Barack Obama (center, back) visited the Prambanan Temple.

N. Agung Nugroho/AP

Obama (center) walked with his daughter Malia (left) during his visit to Prambanan Temple in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

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Obama makes nostalgic trip to his Indonesia childhood home - The Boston Globe

When big-name stars hit NBA free agency, teams will do whatever it takes to make them feel valued. The Clippers know first-hand what some tender love and care can dotheir stakeout at DeAndre Jordan's house helped them retain the center after a big push from the Dallas Mavericks a couple years ago.

So after losing Chris Paul to the Houston Rockets, the Clippers knew they had to do whatever it took to make sure they didn't lose Blake Griffin. As part of their effort to make him feel special, Clippers employees shirts with Griffin's face on it, sitting next to some of the most iconic figures of modern times, including former President Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and more.

With all due respect to Griffinthe guy helped turn the damn Clippers around, it should be notedplacing him next to those figures is alittlemuch. The reactions to the shirt were mixed on Twitter, with some people finding it hilarious and others thinking it was blasphemous to draw these comparisons.

Before you go around getting too upset about it, however, there's some added context behind the shirt. The original version of the shirt was given out to all the Clippers during the preseason, and did not include Griffin's face on it at the time. Since it was used as a motivational tool and source of inspiration for the team, it makes some sense that they would run it back again with a prominent addition when the moment was right.

So this might look weird from an outsider's perspective, but it's a doubling down of something the organization wanted Griffin and his Clippers teammates to focus on prior to this past season. It shows there's some follow through on a goal they wanted their players to aspire to, and even if it's pretty unrealistic to end up alongside men like those on the shirt, it can't hurt to continue to push him down that path.

And hey, it worked! Griffin will be back in Los Angeles after signing an enormous contract extension with the Clippers, where he'll get to be the true leading man now that Paul is in Houston. Here's hoping he takes his opportunity and runs with it.

Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.

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Clippers Employees Wore T-Shirt Comparing Blake Griffin to MLK, Barack Obama to Free Agency Meeting - Complex

Now, the current and former president are carrying out the nastiest public dispute in modern presidential history, one that began on deeply personal terms and which now plays out nearly every time Trump finds a policy he dislikes or a perceived double standard.

And then there's his baseless accusation that Obama ordered wiretapping at Trump Tower, a charge he never fully explained and which he's not yet retracted.

"He was very nice to me but after that we've had some difficulties," Trump said nonchalantly to a CBS interviewer last month. "So it doesn't matter. Words are less important to me than deeds. You saw what happened with surveillance, and everybody saw what happened with surveillance."

In fact, few people saw what happened, at least in the way Trump described it. The accusation, which sources said annoyed the former president, was the moment it became clear to those in both Trump and Obama's spheres that a functional relationship -- which past presidents have long cherished with one another -- was not in the offing.

"He hasn't let up the entire time," bemoaned one former Obama White House official, who said Trump was merely attempting to distract from is own woes by directing attention at his predecessor.

"He operates by making people his enemy," said the official, who spoke anonymously to describe the relationship between the two presidents. "If it deflects the focus from being on him, that's a win for him."

Presidents don't always get along with their successors. Differences in temperament and ideology usually accompany a handoff of power -- the country, it turns out, is often looking for something new when electing a commander in chief.

Herbert Hoover dismissed Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, including Social Security, as "Fascist regimentation," a loaded charge in 1935.

Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower sniped at each other for the entire limousine ride from the White House to the US Capitol ahead of Eisenhower's inauguration, a sour episode that only unraveled further when Truman called Eisenhower a "coward" as he was leaving office (the men later reconciled at John F. Kennedy's funeral).

And Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter battled over who caused the 1982 recession -- a dispute that prompted Carter to publicly accuse his successor of not accepting the full duties of the job.

"When he is ready to accept those responsibilities, I'll be there to help him," Carter said.

In recent times, presidents have largely kept any disagreements between themselves quiet. Obama often bemoaned the state of the economy that George W. Bush left behind, but never attacked his predecessor personally. And while there remained some frostiness between Bush and Bill Clinton -- the man who defeated his father in 1992 -- the men eventually found ways to partner on global relief efforts.

"There have been instances in the past where the current president and a former president do not get along at all," said Timothy Naftali, a historian at New York University who formerly served as director of the Richard Nixon presidential library.

"What's different this time is that the two are showing it. That the animosity is so clear, and of course it's more clear on the part of President Trump, but it can be inferred from the actions of President Obama," he said.

Sources close to Trump say he remains in a competitive stance against Obama, who campaigned heavily for Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential election and offered withering criticism of Trump on the campaign trail.

Obama himself did not ease matters when, at the end of December, he suggested in an interview with his former senior adviser David Axelrod that he could have beaten Trump if he was running for president again. The boast infuriated Trump, according to a person familiar with his reaction.

One administration official said Trump is deeply sensitive to unfavorable comparisons between the pace of his presidency and Obama's. And he has eyed with deep skepticism Obama's emerging presence on the global political stage, where Trump feels increasingly isolated while some western leaders -- including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau -- align themselves in public with Obama in his post-presidency.

Obama's aides, meanwhile, say their boss treated Trump with respect during the transition period, but that a deep relationship between the two was never likely.

"He treated him as his successor and offered candid advice and perspective on a range of issues," said one former White House official. "But Trump never struck him as a particularly deep or intellectually curious guy. We are seeing that in real time now. And the view that they had a bromance was silly. It was Obama trying to exhibit class in a difficult situation."

Trump himself acknowledged in the CBS interview he has "no relationship" with Obama, and the two men have not spoken since Trump waved off Obama from the east front of the US Capitol on Inauguration Day.

There was an unsuccessful attempt by both men to connect shortly after Trump moved into the White House. Following tradition, Obama had left Trump a note on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, which Trump read and wanted to express his appreciation for, according to both a current White House official and a former Obama aide.

Through an aide, Trump tried to reach out to Obama. But his predecessor was traveling west to California, and couldn't take the call. When one of Obama's aides reached back out to the White House to return the call, the new president's staffers said Trump just wanted to say thank you for the note -- and wanted Obama to get the message. The men never connected directly.

Later, after Trump levied his wiretapping charge, top aides to the two men spoke over the phone. But a conversation between the two presidents themselves never materialized.

Since then, there have been no attempts to cool the tensions, according to both men's aides. Instead, the strain has only worsened -- a worrying sign, according to historians.

"If there is no relationship between a president and an ex-president, that means the country is denied the benefit of the experience and wisdom of somebody who has held the most difficult job in this country," Naftali said. "It robs not only the legacy of that former president, but it denies the country of that person's skill set. So I don't think anybody wins."

Unlike most presidents and their predecessors, Trump and Obama found themselves mired in acrimony years before they were brought together as members of the most exclusive club in politics.

Trump spent months in 2010 stoking the false birther theory, which suggested Obama was born outside the United States and was therefore ineligible to serve as president.

Even as late as last year, Trump left unanswered whether he believed Obama was telling the truth about his birthplace. Trump eventually did convene a statement to address the issue, but when reporters arrived to cover it, they discovered the event was mainly meant to promote the opening of Trump's new hotel.

In 2010, when Trump was stoking the birther movement, few in the White House would have imagined that Trump would one day be positioned to unravel major elements of Obama's presidential agenda. Indeed, Obama himself ruthlessly mocked Trump during a speech at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.

This week, Trump escalated his attacks on Obama over the Russia hacking, claiming Obama had done little to combat Moscow's cybermeddling in last year's presidential contest.

"The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win and did not want to 'rock the boat,' " Trump tweeted. "He didn't 'choke,' he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good."

Obama appeared less than disturbed by the barbs when he was photographed, along with his family, on vacation in Bali this week. His Oliver Peoples sunglasses in place and a grin pasted on his face, the former leader strolled through the Tirta Empul temple at Tampaksiring Village, his secret service detail corralling a crowd straining to take his photo.

Earlier in the week he was seen careening down the Ayung River in a red raft, a yellow helmet in place, and the ever-worsening rhetoric aimed his direction by Trump half the world away.

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Trump-Obama relationship reaches historic nastiness ...

WASHINGTON Donald Trump has a new favorite target the guy who used to have his job.

The president is unloading a barrage of attacks on Barack Obama, questioning his motivations in the Russia drama and taking aim at his political legacy, knowing that by choice and tradition, the former commander in chief only has a limited capacity to fight back.

Its an increasingly irksome strategy to Obamas former aides, who must look on as the president trashes their former boss and his achievements, including the Affordable Care Act, climate change and diplomatic thaws with Cuba and Iran.

But, people close to the former president say he has no desire to get dragged into a direct confrontation with his successor despite the intensifying fire from Trump.

Obama plans to stay largely off the political stage, consistent with his behavior since leaving office in January, and in deference to protocol that suggests former presidents should avoid play-by-plays of their successors performance. There have been a few interventions, on health care and climate change for instance, and several speeches around the world in which Obama implicitly criticized Trumps worldview. But hes avoided direct combat.

Trump, of course, is happy to fill the vacuum as he seeks a new foil to define his administration and keep his political base engaged.

An expert in the political art of distraction, the President is seizing on a Washington Post story in which an Obama aide admitted the former administration could have done more to stop Russian election interference.

Long loath to admit that Moscow did indeed play a role in the election that made him President, Trump now seems happy to acknowledge it if he can use the revelations to attack the man who sat in the Oval Office before him.

The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling. With 4 months looking at Russia ... under a magnifying glass, they have zero tapes of T people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology! Trump tweeted Monday.

The administration seized on new revelations like a lifeline after months of incoming fire over claims Trumps campaign aides colluded with Russia, that are now being probed by a special counsel.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday cast doubt on Obamas motivations, arguing, inaccurately, that the previous administration did nothing to thwart Russian election interference last year.

So the question is, if they didnt take any action, does that make them complicit? I think there are a lot of questions that need to get answered about who knew what and when, Spicer said.

Obama in fact, did confront Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, imposed new sanctions on Russia, and initiated a report by intelligence agencies on the extent of the alleged election interference that was published before he left office. The Post reported last week that he also ordered the insertion of cyber weapons inside Russian infrastructure that could be activated at a later date.

The Post also said that Obama did not impose harsher measures out of concern that Putin would escalate the situation. Aides said he did not do more at home to avoid the impression that he himself was interfering in an election that Trump had already claimed was rigged. They also faulted Capitol Hill Republicans for not accepting a bipartisan effort to warn against Russian influence last year.

The emerging strategy has many attractions for the White House.

It offers the relief of going on offense after months under siege. Trump can use it to blur the argument about accusations that he or his aides are guilty of wrongdoing in the Russia affair.

Media coverage of the Presidents charges that Obama did little to halt Russian meddling meanwhile tend to obscure the fact that the current President has so far done little to defend the US electoral system.

Still, it is not clear whether Trumps targeting of Obama, consistent with his political strategy of seeking an enemy, will have lasting rewards.

It cant do much to dispel the biggest cloud over his administration: Eventually, special counsel Robert Mueller will decide if Trump or his campaign aides have a case to answer on their alleged links with Russia, or whether the President obstructed justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

And more immediately, the president will likely have to answer more comprehensively how he plans to protect future elections from interference.

Spicer could only cite a cybersecurity executive order and a commission on voter fraud Monday, when asked how Trump has responded to allegations of Russian meddling so far.

Obama, currently vacationing in Indonesia, is keeping up with the news but will stick to his decision not to wage a tit-for-tat debate with Trump, an aide said.

Thats why he confined his comments on the Senate debate on repealing his signature health care law to a detailed Facebook post, rather than using an on-camera intervention to defend his biggest domestic achievement.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, Obama wrote last week.

The former president will have a chance to more directly channel his political thoughts when he campaigns for Ralph Northam in the Virginia gubernatorial election in the fall, the Obama aide said.

Until then, his supporters will try to fill the gap, taking to Twitter and television studios to defend their former boss though their rebuttals lack the exposure of Trump tweets driving the showdown.

Privately, Obama veterans express disdain for Trumps abilities as a president and his character. Many believe he is wrecking Americas image abroad.

Some also believe he is attacking the former president to disguise his own political woes.

The administrations attacks on President Obamas response to Russia cyber meddling is a transparent effort to distract from the terrible impact of their ACA repeal bill, a former Obama White House official said in a statement on Monday.

Many presidents seek to overturn the influence of their predecessors. Few have done it so viscerally, quickly and personally as Obamas successor.

He withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade pact that was at the center of Obamas Asia pivot strategy. He is pulling the US out of the Paris climate deal which the former president was instrumental in negotiating.

He has rolled back Obamas opening to Cuba and his America First foreign policy is a repudiation of the multilateral approach of the previous administration.

While Trump and Obama had cordial conversations during the transition, when the 44th president worked to prepare his successor and sought to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities, they have no relationship now.

In fact, Trump has lashed out at Obama while under pressure.

I inherited a mess, its a mess, at home and abroad. A mess, jobs are pouring out of the country ... low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas no matter where you look, the Middle East, as disaster, North Korea, Trump said at a press conference in February.

So far however, the President has proved more adept at disruption and dismantling than implementing replacements for Obamas policies.

And while hes often been vocal in decrying Obamas achievements, Trumps actions have not always have been as sweeping as he suggested.

For instance, he did not shutter the US embassy in Cuba opened by Obama as some Republicans had hoped. Even if the GOP manages to repeal Obamacare, some aspects of the law, including protections for those with pre-existing conditions will endure in some form and conservatives see the reform plans as Obamacare lite. Despite toughening US policy towards Iran, Trump has so far honored the nuclear deal brokered by Obama.

And its unlikely that Trumps Obama bashing will linger long in history.

Thats because Obama has already done all he can to secure his reputation for posterity.

He is likely to be judged on his efforts to rescue the economy after the Great Recession, his decision not to strike Syria over its use of chemical weapons, and more intangible impressions, including his personal integrity and political skills, and his status as the first African-American president.

Trumps own actions will be instrumental in how future generations see him.

If for instance, his moves on health care and climate change backfire and come to be seen as historic mistakes, Obamas reputation is likely to prosper by contrast with his successor, whatever Trump says now.

If Trump makes his presidency a roaring success, he could dim Obamas star. (CNN)

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Trump making a sport out of Obama bashing - The Philadelphia Tribune