WHITE HOUSE FUMES OVER RUSSIA RELEASE OF CLOSED DOOR MEETING PHOTOS
WASHINGTON— Donald Trump’s administration was left redfaced Thursday after the Kremlin surprised it by releasing pictures of a closed-door meeting between the US president and Russia’s top diplomat.
The images—issued by the Russian state news agency TASS and published by much of the global media—showed a grinning Trump shaking hands with Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador in Washington, Sergei Kislyak, during an Oval Office meeting.
That meeting was already being seen as a major diplomatic coup for the Kremlin, a red carpet welcome just months after being hit with US sanctions for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Veteran diplomats questioned why Trump agreed to host the Russians—a rare honor for nonheads of state, much less for those at the center of major US political scandal.
US administrations often treat Oval Office meetings as a type of currency, dangling the prospect of a high-profile sitdown to gain leverage.
But the emergence of photos compounded the perception that Russia had won a diplomatic victory and that the Trump White House was outmaneuvered.
“Congrats Kollegi (colleagues) at getting these photos! Huge coup,” said former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul.
Publicly, the White House put on a brave face.
Trump “should be meeting with the foreign minister,” said White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders, lambasting critics.
“For them to try to attack him for doing his job, maybe they should spend a little more time doing their jobs and we wouldn’t have all the problems that we do,” Huckabee said.
Privately, though, White House officials seethed at what they described as a breach of trust.
Officials said Vladimir Putin had requested for the meeting, a quid-pro-quo for his recent face-to-face with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow.
The White House was told an official Russian photographer would be present, implying the images would be for historical record and not necessarily made public.
“Our official photographer and their official photographer were present, that’s it,” said one aide shortly after the meeting.
But when the images were published across the world via state media, the White House raged that Moscow had misled them.
Two officials admitted they were not told that the images would be made public.