You can watch a video that explains how Vladimir Putin received 76.7 percent of the vote and won another six-year term as president of the Russian Federation with a margin of 65 points over his nearest competitor.

I don’t see why any congratulations are in order, unless someone wants to send some “Job Well Done” cards to that crew of criminals in the video that shoved dozens and dozens of Putin votes into that rectangular ballot box.  What I can understand, however, is why our country’s national security officials wrote “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” on the briefing notes they supplied President Trump to prepare him for his telephone call with the Russian president.

Of course, it didn’t work. Despite the fact that the election was rigged six ways to Sunday, including by a ban on Putin’s most plausible challenger having a place on the ballot, the first thing out of Trump’s mouth when he talked to Putin was a word of congratulations on his great victory. And it wasn’t just the clearly fraudulent election that led the national security team to warn Trump off offering congratulations. There’s also a little thing called “attempted murder.”

Although the Trump administration has taken a tougher stance toward Russia recently — including new sanctions last week on some entities for election meddling and cyberattacks — the president has declined to forcefully join London in denouncing Moscow for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, this month. They remain critically ill….

…Trump’s failure to raise Moscow’s alleged poisoning of the former spy in Britain risked angering officials in London, who are trying to rally Britain’s closest allies to condemn the attack. Russia has denied involvement in the March 4 poisoning, but the attack has badly damaged British-Russian relations, and British Prime Minister Theresa May last week announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia are critically ill but may survive. The murder attempt on Russian dissident Nikolai Glushkov was successful. Vladimir Putin sent a man to break into his southwest London home and strangle him to death. The murder was completed nine days ago. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you just overlook, and the United Kingdom is not comforted to know that the American president has done just that.

There really isn’t anything left to prove. Our president is incapable of standing up to Vladimir Putin and might as well be his vassal. I don’t need to wait for Robert Mueller’s report to know what’s going on.