Trump's Undisclosed Meeting With
Putin At G-20 Summit
President Trump with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the
G-20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, this month.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Donald Trump has been heavily criticised after it emerged he
had another, previously undisclosed conversation with
No other US officials were present and the pair communicated
through a Russian translator meaning only the Kremlin has a
record of what was said.
The head of the widely-respected Brookings Institute think tank
has said the President could be “compromised” by the meeting.
The conversation came hours after Trump and Putin’s first
official face-to-face meeting on July 7, which was originally
scheduled to last just half an hour but stretched on for more than two.
The two world leaders were also captured on video shaking
hands and exchanging a few words after they arrived at the
G-20 summit of industrialised and developing nations
earlier that day, reports the Associated Press.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer and National Security
Council spokesman Michael Anton confirmed that Trump and
Putin spoke at a dinner for world leaders and their spouses at
the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Anton would not specify the duration of the conversation.
But he said the discussion was casual and should not be
characterised as a “meeting” or even a less formal,
but official, “pull-aside.”
“A conversation over dessert should not be characterised
as a meeting,” he said.
Jason Kandar, a former US Army intelligence officer implied
the circumstances of the meeting would have been favourable
for a Russian President seeking to destabilise the US.
The dinner, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was
open only to world leaders and their spouses, as well as one
translator per couple, according to a senior White House official
who described the event on condition of anonymity despite
the president’s criticism of unnamed sources.
The official stressed that Trump spoke with many leaders over
the course of the dinner and said he spoke briefly with Putin, who
was seated next to first lady Melania Trump, as the event
was concluding. T
rump spoke with Putin using Russia’s translator, since the
American translator did not speak Russian.
But Ian Bremmer, who said he spoke with two people who
attended the dinner, said that Trump and Putin spoke for nearly
an hour while sitting among the other world leaders and their
spouses at the dinner. Bremmer is a foreign affairs columnist
and the president of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm.
Attendees described the meeting as startling, said Bremmer,
who was told Trump was very animated as he spoke with Putin,
often using his hands to gesture.
Trump defended the dinner in a pair of angry tweets late Tuesday
that noted the dinner had been on his public schedule.
Trump and Putin’s relationship has been under scrutiny since the
election campaign, when Trump repeatedly praised Putin as a
strong leader and publicly encouraged him to hack then-rival
Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump aides have since said he was joking.
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian
government meddled in the 2016 election in order to help Trump.
Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on their findings and dismissed
investigations into potential collusion between his campaign
and Moscow as a “witch hunt.”
(Source:Huffington Post, UK)
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