Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump: Putin denials of ’16 meddling real
Russia-tampering claims a political ‘hit job,’ he says
DANANG, Vietnam — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he believes President Vladimir Putin was sincere in his denials of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, calling questions about Moscow’s meddling a politically motivated “hit job” that is hindering cooperation with Russia on life-or-death issues.
Speaking after meeting privately with Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Trump said he had again asked whether Russia had meddled in the campaign and that the continued focus on the issue was insulting to Putin.
Trump said it was time to move past the issue so that the United States and Russia can cooperate on confronting the nuclear threat from North Korea, solving the Syrian civil war and working together on Ukraine.
“He said he didn’t meddle — I asked him again,” Trump told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One as he flew to Hanoi for more meetings. “You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.”
Trump did not answer a
direct question about whether he believes Putin’s denials.
“Well, look, I can’t stand there and argue with him,” Trump said. “I’d rather have him get out of Syria, to be honest with you. I’d rather have him, you know, work with him on the Ukraine than standing and arguing about whether or not — ’cause that whole thing was set up by the Democrats.”
But Trump’s account of the conversation indicates that he is far more inclined to accept the Russian president’s assertions than those of his own intelligence agencies, which have concluded that Putin directed an elaborate effort to interfere in the vote. The CIA, the National Security Agency, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence all determined that Russia meddled in the election.
“Every time he sees me he says, ‘I didn’t do that,’ and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Trump said of Putin. “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was quoted by Russian news agencies as telling reporters that “Trump really raised the topic of so-called interference in US elections,” and that “Putin categorically rejected even the hypothetical possibility that Russia could have in some way interfered in the U.S. electoral process.”
The president said lingering questions about whether his campaign aides had worked with Russia to sway the election are souring Washington’s relationship with Moscow on a host of vital security issues.
“Having a good relationship with Russia is a great, great thing,” Trump said. “This artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way, and that’s a shame, because people will die.”
In a pair of tweets sent Saturday evening, Trump took aim at “the haters and fools out there” who have questioned his efforts to maintain “a good relationship with Russia.”
“[They are] always playing politics - bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help!” he tweeted.
DEMOCRATS REACT
His remarks came as the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia deepened, with disclosures over the past two weeks showing that there were more contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russians than were previously known, and that senior campaign officials were aware of them.
The comments inspired immediate ridicule from Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the election.
“You know who else is insulted by it, Mr. President? The American people,” Schiff said on Twitter. “You believe a foreign adversary over your own intelligence agencies.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, another California Democrat, called Trump “dumb as a rock.” Lieu wrote on Twitter that he and Trump had seen classified information on Russia’s interference in the election, and that Trump’s comments were lies.
“Trump knows the Kremlin hacked America last year,” Lieu said.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the party’s presidential nominee in 2008, said in a statement that Trump’s faith in Putin’s denial was “naive.”
“There’s nothing ‘America First’ about taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community,” McCain wrote, referring to Putin’s former career in Soviet intelligence. “Vladimir Putin does not have America’s interests at heart.”
Trump heaped disdain on the former leaders of three U.S. intelligence agencies — John Brennan, the former CIA director; James Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; and James Comey, the FBI director he fired this year — appearing to suggest that they were less trustworthy than Putin.
“I mean, give me a break — they’re political hacks,” Trump said. “You have Brennan, you have Clapper, and you have Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar, and he’s proven to be a leaker, so you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that.”
After Trump’s comments, Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency, wrote on Twitter that the CIA had told him the agency’s director “stands by and has always stood by” its January findings on Russian interference.
“The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed,” he wrote.
The allegations of collusion are the subject of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, as well as multiple congressional inquiries.
PUTIN WEIGHS IN
Trump’s comments about the Russian president and his warning about deteriorating Moscow ties came after the close of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Danang, where the White House steered clear of a formal meeting between the two men and made a point of announcing Friday that one would not occur.
Reporters who travel with Trump were barred from covering his activities for most of Saturday, leaving them in the dark about his informal interactions. But video showed him shaking hands with Putin on Friday at a gala dinner and chatting with him Saturday before and after a group photograph of the conference leaders.
The Kremlin released a statement saying that the leaders had met and struck an agreement on Syria, but the White House did not immediately confirm the information. Speaking with reporters later, Trump said he had two or three brief conversations with Putin, mostly about Syria.
The talks were described in a joint statement by United States and Russia that reaffirmed previous commitments to defeat the Islamic State and to untangle conflicts between their forces on the Syrian battlefield.
It said Trump believes he had “a good meeting” with Putin on common efforts that, once in place, would “save thousands of lives.” And Trump praised his relationship with Putin, saying the two “seem to have a very good feeling for each other and a good relationship, considering we don’t know each other well.”
Trump’s description of the exchange about election meddling was striking because it suggested that he concurred with Putin’s oft-stated contention that the issue was a contrived story that had been allowed to become a detriment to both the United States and Russia.
“This is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia,” Trump said of Putin. “He says that very strongly; he really seems to be insulted by it, and he says he didn’t do it.”
Trump’s reaction recalled the first face-to-face talk between the two presidents, on the sideline of the Group of 20 summit meeting in July in Hamburg, Germany, during which Trump broached the subject of Russia’s election meddling but mentioned no consequences.
When Putin denied it, U.S. officials said at the time, Trump said the two countries must agree to disagree on the issue and move on to other topics where they can work together.
Putin similarly brushed off recent revelations that Russians had contacts with Trump’s campaign team — including an aide who had met with a woman described as Putin’s niece — as a “domestic political struggle” in the United States.
“I think that everything connected with the so-called Russian dossier in the United States is a manifestation of a continuing domestic political struggle,” Putin said after the summit meeting, in remarks carried by Russian news media.
“I learned only yesterday about some sort of meeting of my relatives with representatives of the administration or official figures,” Putin said. He said Peskov had told him about the reports.
“I know absolutely nothing about this — absolutely nothing,” Putin said. “It seems like nonsense.”
Putin said a scheduling conflict and an unspecified issue with protocol had gotten in the way of a more substantive meeting with Trump. “This was connected to Mr. Trump’s schedule, and my schedule, and certain formalities with protocol that our teams, unfortunately, didn’t resolve. Well, they will be punished,” he said.
“Still, nothing terrible happened,” Putin added. “We spoke in the course of today’s gathering; we had a conversation.”
Putin said Trump behaved at meetings “with the highest level of goodwill and correctness,” adding, “he is a cultured person, and comfortable discussing matters related to work.”
Trump’s visit to Hanoi began with a state dinner during which he showered the country with praise, saying it has “truly become one of the great miracles of the world.” Today, he’ll meet with the country’s president and prime minister before heading to his last Asian-trip stop, the Philippines.