New York Daily News

Papa-who? Don blanks on meeting

- BY DENIS SLATTERY

PRESIDENT TRUMP — who a week ago bragged he had “one of the greatest memories of all time” — said Friday he has no recollecti­on of a campaign meeting with an adviser who offered up a sitdown with the Kremlin.

Trump called the 2016 sitdown with his foreign policy advisers a “very unimportan­t meeting” and said he doesn’t “remember much about it.”

The President’s claim comes as a former campaign adviser recalled that Trump was listening while another adviser, George Papadopoul­os, presented the idea of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He heard him out,” J.D. Gordon, a campaign national security adviser who attended the March 31, 2016 meeting, told CNN Thursday. Now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly shut down the idea.

Papadopoul­os (photo) has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperatin­g with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigat­ion into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow to disrupt the presidenti­al election, according to court documents.

“All I can tell you is this, there was no collusion, there was no nothing,” Trump said Friday as he left for a 12-day trip to Asia. “It’s a disgrace, frankly, that they continue.”

Addressing the meeting, of which Trump tweeted a photo at the time, the President said his memory was a little fuzzy. “I don’t remember much about that meeting,” he said. “It was a very unimportan­t meeting.”

Last week, the President touted his mental prowess during a press conference on the White House lawn and tried to discredit the widow of a slain Army sergeant. Trump, pointing to his temple, said his account of a phone call between the two was correct because he has “one of the great memories of all time.”

Trump also said he’s disappoint­ed in the Justice Department and the FBI for not investigat­ing Democrats with what he sees as the same vigor that they are looking into Russian meddling and his associates.

“Honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats,” he said.

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