Trump Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Meeting in Private with Putin

Best buds.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images.

If you’re a U.S. president whose campaign ties to Russia are being investigated by the Justice Department, who has been consistently accused of acting in a manner that suggests the Russian government has “got” something on you, and who, on at least one occasion, has revealed classified intelligence gathered by another country to two Russian envoys, it’s probably not the greatest idea to meet with the president of Russia without someone there to record the details of what was discussed. But, surprise! That’s exactly what Donald Trump did just a few short months ago. Again.

The Financial Times reports that at the end of an evening event at the G20 summit in November, Trump sat down with Vladimir Putin “with no translator or note-taker from the U.S. side to record the dialogue between the leaders.” The private chat—which was also attended by Melania Trump and Putin’s translator—took place after Trump canceled formal talks following Russia’s attack on three Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov. While the White House has admitted that the two leaders did indeed meet, people familiar with the matter say—and you might want to sit down for this—that the conversation “appeared longer and more substantive than the White House has acknowledged.” The White House has also attempted to characterize the Putin sit-down as just one of several “informal” chats Trump held with counterparts that evening, the difference being that, to our knowledge, there aren’t any questions about possible collusion between the president’s 2016 campaign and, say, Australia or Germany.

The news that Trump thought it appropriate to effectively meet in private with comrade Vlad comes after a report earlier this month that at a G20 meeting in Hamburg in 2017, the U.S. president confiscated an interpreter’s notes from another sit-down with Putin, and instructed the aide “not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials,” which are definitely the actions of a man who has nothing to hide.

The U.S. State Department referred questions from the F.T. to the White House, which declined to comment beyond its prior acknowledgment that the encounter had, in fact, occurred. A Kremlin spokesperson also declined the F.T.‘s request for comment. Former U.S. national security officials say that it is “standard practice” for U.S. presidents to have staff on hand while meeting with U.S. adversaries, though given Trump’s view that Putin is a dear friend who has America’s best interests at heart, he apparently didn’t think it necessary.

This story was originally published by Vanity Fair

via USAHint.com