Standing beside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland's presidential palace on a midsummer's day seven years ago, President Trump proved that he still had the power to shock.

At a news conference after meeting privately with the Russian leader, Trump sided with Putin on whether the Kremlin had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," Trump said, contradicting his own intelligence officials before recounting discredited conspiracy theories.

Top Republicans were horrified. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called it a "disgraceful performance." Trump's own national security adviser at the time, John Bolton, would later write that "Putin had to be laughing uproariously at what he had gotten away with in H

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