Trump, Putin held 2nd secret meeting
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours into a long dinner with world leaders who had gathered for the Group of 20 summit meeting, US President Donald Trump left his chair at the sprawling banquet table and headed to where Russian President Vladimir Putin of Russia was seated.
Earlier in the day, the two presidents had met for the first time, yielding what the Trump administration later described as a warm rapport, even as they talked about Russia’s interference in the US 2016 elections.
The July 7 meeting in Hamburg, Germany was the single most scrutinized of the Trump presidency. But it turned out there was another, potentially just as important encounter: a roughly hourlong one-onone discussion over dinner that was only overheard by a Kremlin-provided interpreter.
No presidential relationship has been more dissected than the one between Trump and Putin, a dynamic only heightened by the swirl of investigations into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election in his favor.
Nevertheless, the meeting was confirmed by the White House only on Tuesday, after some attendees privately expressed surprise that it had occurred.
The dinner discussion caught the attention of other leaders around the table, some of whom later remarked privately on the odd spectacle of an American president seeming to single out the Russian leader for special attention at a summit meeting that included some of the United States’ staunchest, oldest allies.
The White House acknowledged the conversation on Tuesday, but said there was nothing unusual about it, batting aside the suggestion that it had been deliberately hidden from public view.
Late Tuesday night, Trump derided news reports about it as “sick.”
He said the dinner was not a secret, since all of the world leaders at the summit meeting and their spouses were invited by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. “Press knew!” he tweeted.
“Even a dinner arranged for top 20 leaders in Germany is made to look sinister!” Trump added.
While the private leadersand-spouses dinner was on Trump’s public schedule, the news media was not allowed to witness any part of it, nor were reporters provided with an account of what transpired.