1. Was it stupidity or sabotage for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to deliver to the president in a way that they would be released on Friday, one business day before the president's meeting with Putin, indictments on 12 Russian military officers?

• Is there a rush for when the trials from these indictments will begin?  When will that be, exactly?

• Since it was considered critical by Rosenstein to dispense with ordinary diplomatic courtesy – yes, even for a foe like Russia, so we don't stir up any unnecessary antagonism – does this mean we are under a tight timeframe on the end of the Mueller investigation?  When can we expect that investigation to end?  Presumably, it must be soon because of the urgency with which these indictments needed to be made public.

2. What was it expected the president would say about our intelligence agencies that are investigating his alleged collusion with the Russians in the last election?  The president was kind about these activities of our intelligence agencies, given that...

• Peter Strzok, with a deranged animus against the president, was in charge of the FBI investigation into his activities and is still employed by the FBI!

• The FBI and CIA colluded to endorse the Steele dossier as legitimate intelligence to support obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign with a view to destroying it.  This involved James Comey as director of the FBI and John Brennan as director of the CIA.

• James Comey, director of the FBI, lied to the president on the nature of the Steele dossier in his first official briefing of the president.  Then he made private notes based on his official duties and presented them to people outside the FBI.

• The FBI, in investigating Hillary Clinton's flouting of the laws regarding government communications, led in that effort by James Comey as director and Peter Strzok as polemicist, were unable to find any intent to do wrong on her part by ignoring the fact that she and her husband made $85 million in earnings during her tenure as secretary of state.

• Samantha Power, ambassador to the U.N., and Susan Rice, national security adviser, unmasked hundreds of names of Trump campaign-related American citizens caught up in NSA intercepts that were meant to remain confidential during a period when the NSA database was available to the broader intelligence agencies.

Conclusion?  At the Helsinki press conference, the president gave a much stronger endorsement of our intelligence agencies in regard to their activities relating to the last election than they deserved.