US and Russian Relations: Does Trump know Putin? “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin "he never met"

The Washington post reported that in a recent tweet , President Trump repeated his claim that he doesn’t “know Vladimir Putin,” an argument he’s made ever since closeness to Russia and his presidentcy became a political liability. On the other hand, back when knowing world leaders was an asset, though, Trump bragged about his relationship with Putin.

The Washington Post gave a  chronology of what Donald said about his relationship with Putin in a variety of interviews since 2013, which shows quite some alarming flip-flop answers by the US President. 

June 2013: “Will he become my new best friend?
November 2013: “I do have a relationship”
March 2014: “Putin even sent me a present” 
May 2014: “I spoke … with President Putin”
November 2015: “I got to know him very well”
July 2016 - "the big switch": Trump denies knowing Putin in a number of documented interviews  as he states: “I don’t know who Putin is - I have nothing to do with Putin. I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know anything about him other than he will respect me. He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius. I said thank you very much to the newspaper, and that was the end of it. I never met Putin.”
February 2017: “I don’t know Putin”

Maybe the famous line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, when an officer of the palace guard says: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, after the ghost of the dead king appears, walking over the palace walls, fits this situation best? 

Bottom Line: Why is President Trump lying about his personal connections in Russia?  

EU-Digest