Trump to Invite Putin to Washington as Top Advisers Seek Details of Their Summit Talks

Striped Horse · Jul 20, 2018

Oh boy. I bet this announcement is going to cause a major fire-storm in Washington. Trump certainly knows how to beard those he opposes politically.

But at least we now know the US position about Russia having investigative access to American citizens in exchange for providing access to US investigators to interview those Russians the US claims were hacking. It's nixed. No chance of that happening.

Trump to Invite Putin to Washington as Top Advisers Seek Details of Their Summit Talks
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The White House rejected a proposal by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that would have allowed American officials to question 12 indicted Russians in exchange for getting access to American citizens.CreditSergei Karpukhin/Reuters

By Mark Landler

July 19, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to invite President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to visit Washington in the fall, the White House said Thursday — an invitation that stunned the nation’s top intelligence official, who said he was still groping for details of what the two leaders had discussed in their encounter this week in Helsinki, Finland.

“Say that again,” the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, replied when Andrea Mitchell of NBC broke the news while interviewing him at a security conference in Aspen, Colo. “O.K.,” Mr. Coats said, taking a deep breath and chuckling awkwardly. “That’s going to be special.”

The announcement came as the White House spent a third day trying to explain statements made by Mr. Trump after the Helsinki meeting, and as uncertainty spread throughout the government about whether he had reached agreements with Mr. Putin on Syria and Ukraine, leaving his military and diplomatic corps in the dark.

Yielding to intense criticism, Mr. Trump rejected a proposal by Mr. Putin for Russia to question American citizens, including a former ambassador to Moscow, Michael A. McFaul, in return for giving the United States access to 12 Russian military intelligence officers indicted on charges of trying to sabotage the 2016 presidential election.

Two hours after the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued that reversal, she said on Twitter that Mr. Trump had asked his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to invite Mr. Putin, framing the decision as part of a dialogue that began in Helsinki and would continue at lower levels until the Russian president comes to Washington.

Beyond saying the meeting would be in the fall, the White House did not announce a date. That means Mr. Trump could meet Mr. Putin again before the midterm elections, giving him a chance to redress the widespread criticism of how he handled the first meeting and possibly injecting further volatility into the campaigns.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/...browder-mcfaul.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

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Trump to Invite Putin to Washington as Top Advisers Seek Details of Their Summit Talks

Striped Horse Well-Known Member

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Trump to Invite Putin to Washington as Top Advisers Seek Details of Their Summit Talks

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