Vladimir Putin is taking the long view. Realizing that the investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 elections is likely to show that they were hacking, he admitted that this probably happened. Not by the government of course, but by patriotic individual Russians that felt their government was threatened. He did not say threatened by whom, but the answer is Hillary Clinton.

Putin also let us know told us that we should not expect him or his government to do anything about it. He likened the hackers to artists that wake up with an idea and act on it. And if any connection is ever made between these hackers and Donald Trump, that is their business, not the Russian government’s.

Meanwhile, when pressed Trump is going to say that the Russians did nothing wrong. And he will be right, just like he was right when he said it was smart to pay as little taxes as legally possible. He will point to Obama’s government, which did plenty of hacking, even of our allies, so why shouldn’t the Russians try to hack us? We certainly try to hack them. He will continue to claim that he was not involved, and if the hacking benefited his campaign, so what?

The reality is that the Democrats brought this on themselves. They were irresponsibly lax regarding their computer security. Hillary Clinton set the tone when she decided to use her personal email system instead of the State Department’s, despite repeated warnings.

Both Trump and Putin will claim that it is not their fault that the Democrats left themselves open to hacking, and they will be right.

They will also claim that it was not their fault that people took advantage of it for political reasons, and they would be right about that too.

They will further maintain that they had nothing to do with planning or supporting the hacking, but it remains to be seen whether they are right about that. Of course, even if proven wrong, they have both proven very adept at denying the truth and turning to ‘alternative facts’.