Trump/Putin/Helsinki

8/22/18
It has been more than a month since President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin behind closed doors in Helsinki. But lawmakers still have no idea what the two leaders discussed, and they have little hope of ever finding out. “The only place they could get it from would be the president himself, it sounds like,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) said bluntly in an interview just hours after the State Department’s Europe and Eurasia chief testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “To date, we have received no real readout, even in a classified setting, of this meeting,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the chairman of the foreign relations committee, said in his opening statement. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a top Democratic member of the panel, told The Daily Beast that the committee still has “shockingly little information” about the summit.

“I think they made it really clear they just had no knowledge. No, the question wasn’t answered,” Corker said in an interview. “I don’t think they know what happened in that meeting. So they’re unable to answer the question.” Faced with the reality that top State Department officials, including Pompeo, appeared to have been not fully briefed on what happened in private in Helsinki, lawmakers are skeptical that they will ever receive that information—unless, as Cornyn suggested, it comes from the president directly. Republican and Democratic senators said the Trump administration has effectively shunned the basic, long-standing practice of sharing information with relevant congressional committees—even in a classified setting. “They’re not saying what happened there [because] they don’t know what commitments were made and what was said. That remains a concern,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a member of the foreign relations panel, said in an interview. “The secretary of state couldn’t provide that either.”

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Rogue Valley said:

Congress Still Has No Idea What President Trump Said to Vladimir Putin

Basically, no Americans except Donald Trump and his [Russian] interpreter know what was said between Trump and Vladimir Putin for over two hours in Helsinki.

A Trump/Putin secret pact, not to be shared with Trumps highest ranking civilian/military officials, the US Congress, and the American people.

This is the Trump that said in Helsinki that he believed the KGB Colonel rather than the US intelligence community regarding Russian hacking/meddling in the 2016 election.

And Trump disingenuously wonders where Americans get the notion of him colluding/conspiring with the Putin regime.

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Oceanborn said:

Do you believe that Trump is the first and only US president to have a private meeting with a Russian leader?

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Tanngrisnir said:

Do you believe that's the actual issue here?

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Tanngrisnir said:

Do you believe that's the actual issue here?

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Oceanborn said:

Do believe that it's only an issue when Trump does it?

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Oceanborn said:

Do you believe that Trump is the first and only US president to have a private meeting with a Russian leader?

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Crystal said:

I remember Obama whispering sweet nothings on a hot mike. Something about “flexibility” wonder what that was all about? Will we ever know? And that meeting on the tarmac!

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Crystal said:

I remember Obama whispering sweet nothings on a hot mike. Something about “flexibility” wonder what that was all about? Will we ever know? And that meeting on the tarmac!

Click to expand...

Oceanborn said:

Do you believe that Trump is the first and only US president to have a private meeting with a Russian leader?

Click to expand...

Oceanborn said:

Do you believe that Trump is the first and only US president to have a private meeting with a Russian leader?

Click to expand...