Retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey says Trump is a ‘serious threat to US national security’

Mr McCaffrey has noted that the President has not punished Russia for its 2016 meddling as much as previous presidents may have

A retired four-star general says that President Donald Trump is a serious threat to United States national security.

Army Gen Barry McCaffrey made the accusation in a Twitter post in which he said that Mr Trump is “under the sway” of Russian forces and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security,” Mr McCaffrey wrote. “He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.”

Mr McCaffrey is a highly decorated former military man who now provides analysis for NBC News. He worked for the Clinton administration in the late 1990s as the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Russia has been accused of meddling in the United States’ 2016 election, using hordes of Twitter bots and targeted Facebook advertising to sway the election in favour of Mr Trump. Since taking office, Mr Trump has been reluctant to punish Mr Putin and his government for the meddling during that year.

Since the election, questions have also swirled about the extent to which Mr Trump and his team may have participated in that Russian election meddling, and whether members of the Trump campaign were complicit in the efforts at all.

While Mr Trump has denied that any collusion between him and Russia occurred, an investigation undertaken by special counsel Robert Mueller has been gaining steam over the past year and has already led to several indictments of individuals close to Mr Trump or his 2016 campaign.

Those indictments have largely targeted financial crimes unrelated to Russian meddling, however it has been theorised that Mr Mueller’s team has brought those indictments primarily to force their targets to disclose information about Russia’s election efforts in 2016.