Who is lying: Putin or the CIA?

I once asked a senior member of Britain's secret intelligence service how they went about their business. One thing he said was that they were trained to lie on behalf of HM Government, as well as carry out illegal acts abroad to uncover secrets that would help Britain's foreign and economic policy. James Bond lying? Surely not. Well, this is the espionage world, full of conspiracy and covert agent-running and developing contacts at the highest level in foreign governments. So, President Trump, when Vladimir Putin told you it was absolutely not true that Russia had interfered in the US 2016 election, he was replying to your questions as a trained KGB man. Lieutenant-Colonel Putin of the KGB was and is a trained liar. That's what they do, and they do it extremely well, just as the KGB's counterparts in the west lie. So, first of all, there's no point in asking Putin whether his cyber-warfare flunkeys took part in subterfuge to disrupt the US elections and make sure Trump won the presidency because the reply will always be whatever suits Putin's position. He is never going to say: "Sorry, Donald, I've been lying all along, I did it because I wanted you to be president, not that ghastly Hillary Clinton." So, the reply you got from Putin on this latest occasion was never going to be the truth and nothing but the truth. Trump appears to have gone along with his Russian buddy's response by publicly declaring that Putin had denied interfering and that was that. He didn't actually say he believed the Russian leader but he didn't say he didn't either. What a convoluted tangle. Just to make sure it didn't sound as if he was accusing the CIA, FBI and NSA of lying when they all agreed Russia HAD interfered in the election, Trump said he fully supported the US intelligence services. But you can't have it both ways, Mr President. Either you believe, and sincerely believe, your own intelligence services or you don't. Either you believe everything Putin says as gospel or you don't. You can't have it both ways. But then the declaration that Russia had been involved in some skulduggery during the election was made during the administration of President Barack Obama. So Trump probably thinks it was all a political stunt by Obama and his top spies to embarrass him. If that really was the case, then the US is in trouble because a huge amount of American foreign and domestic policy is forged on the basis of intelligence supplied by the CIA, FBI and NSA. If everything they do is politicised, they cannot be trusted. Trump once implied that US spies couldn't be trusted because they claimed Saddam Husein had weapons of mass destruction when he didn't. OK, fair enough, but I firmly believe that America's intelligence services, as well as the intelligence services of Britain, France, Germany etc etc, WERE convinced of the presence of weapons of destruction based on the secret material they were receiving. They were wrong, they put two and two together and made ten, they assumed everything they were receiving was sound intelligence, and they failed to get first-hand evidence: ie no single Western intelligence officer was able to say, hand on heart, that he or she had actually seen a warehouse full of biological and nuclear weapons, and had taken photographs of long-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads at the top. No, it was all word of mouth, and the mouths were telling lies. But that still doesn't mean the intelligence services themselves were lying in order to please their political masters, especially President George W Bush and Tony Blair. They weren't lying, they were duped, like the rest of us. So, President Trump, decide once and for all. Do you believe your own intelligence services or do you believe Putin? Once you have made up your mind, please tell us. A tweet will do.