Accidents Review: Flatiron ship, Flatiron steam pipe explosion and, the next day, Branson Missouri ‘Duck’ Boat Accident – What are the “messages”?

Good morning, D Briefers, from 8,000 feet elevation and the annual Aspen Security Forum, which could not have been better timed. A list of Trump administration officials and national security leaders from military, intelligence, homeland and foreign policy circles have gathered to give a collective, “What the…?” and make sense of the whirlwind of fallout continuing from the NATO Summit and Helsinki meeting.

No really, what agreements? “In a speech to Russian diplomats in Moscow, Putin says summit with Trump was ‘successful overall and led to useful agreements,”’ reports NPR’s Lucian Kim, from Moscow, early Thursday. (“Better than super” is how Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it a few days ago.)

Implementation will take a second meeting. Trump then tweeted: “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear……..” (deep breath, second tweet) “…proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more. There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems…but they can ALL be solved!” (If you’re tracking, we believe that’s also Trump’s first use of his “enemy of the people” line since five journalists were murdered in Annapolis three weeks ago.)

Did Trump agree to start normalizing military relations with Russians? Maybe. That’s one of the statements to come out of Moscow Tuesday, so we asked around. The Pentagon doesn’t seem to know. Neither does Congress. More telling, neither does Trump’s own National Security Council, which said, uh, we’re looking into it.

NSC spox: “The Helsinki summit was the beginning of a process between the United States and Russia to reduce tensions and advance areas of cooperation in our mutual interest,” a National Security Council spokesperson told Defense One on Tuesday. “We are reviewing the discussion between President Trump and President Putin, considering possible next steps, and have nothing further to announce at this time.”

Butina was indicted this week on charges of being a covert Russian agent but, according to investigative reporter John Solomon, the FBI knew about Butina’s nefarious activities as she befriended  leaders of the National Rifle Association and the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“I’ll tell you a little story I’ve never told before,” Solomon told Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs on Wednesday.

“In March of 2015,  I observed her at several events and really cozying up to conservatives and making what I thought was a weak-handed case that she was this courageous gun rights activist going up against Putin and there would one day be a Second Amendment in Russia,” Solomon recounted.