Trump, Putin Had Second, Previously Undisclosed Meeting at G-20 Summit
Why all the secrecy and deception? U.S. & Russia offer completely different accounts of Trump-Putin meeting.
President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin a second time during the G-20 summit earlier this month, a White House official confirmed to NBC News Tuesday.
Trump spoke to Putin at the end of a couples-only social dinner at the summit in Hamburg, Germany, the official said, reiterating it was a social dinner. Pull-asides are typically less formal than official bilateral meetings, which Trump and Putin also shared.
The White House did not previously disclose or offer a record of what was discussed during the meeting, which was first reported by Ian Bremmer, president of the international consulting firm Eurasia Group.
During that Friday night dinner, Putin was seated next to first lady Melania Trump.
Trump and Putin’s first face-to-face meeting as world leaders came while in Germany, with the bilateral lasting over two hours. During that meeting, Putin denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election, though it still remains unclear whether or not Trump accepted the Kremlin’s version of events. Russian officials, including Putin, have indicated that Trump accepted Putin’s denial.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump “heard” Putin’s denial “and he moved forward with places they thought they could work together.”
Trump took to Twitter Tuesday night to downplay the encounter.
The Trump-Putin relationship has been highly scrutinized amid ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the election, which includes a probe into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Trump and his team have repeatedly denied those allegations.
Last week, it was revealed that the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., met with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June 2016 after being promised compromising information on Democrat Hillary Clinton and informed that the information was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Trump defended his son, saying “most people” would have taken the meeting.
“It’s called opposition research or research into your opponent,” Trump said during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris last week.
Also on Tuesday, the White House announced that Trump intends to nominate former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as U.S. ambassador to Russia. Huntsman — whose first name was misspelled as “John” in the White House press release — served as U.S. ambassador to China in the Obama administration and ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
