POLS: BE TOUGH ON MEDDLING
Prez says he’ll bring up indictments
WASHINGTON — President Trump, who is known to rely on his instincts more than on the advice of even his closest aides, said he is going into today’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin with “low expectations” and has not laid out specific goals for the high-stakes meeting other than seeking ways to “get along.”
But there are concrete objectives that Trump could seek during his talks with the Russian leader — and foreign policy experts and U.S. lawmakers spent much of the weekend signaling to Trump to use the opportunity to press Putin on 2016 election interference efforts outlined by U.S. intelligence officials and federal prosecutors and more, without giving away too much to Putin.
“I go in with very low expectations,” Trump said yesterday on CBS News. “I think that getting along with Russia is a good thing. But it’s possible we won’t.”
Just days after the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller yielded indictments against 12 Russian intelligence agents — the first time Russian government officials have been charged for efforts to interfere with the 2016 election — Trump said that seeking assurances from Putin that the charged individuals would be extradited to the United States to face the charges was not at the top of his mind.
“Well, I might. I hadn’t thought of that, but, certainly, I will be asking about it,” Trump said.
But Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike said that issue should be a basic starting point for the talks.
“The president must demand that the 12 Russians named in the indictment be sent to the U.S. to stand trial,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate’s top Democrat.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (RS.C.), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said Trump should demand that the dozen Russian officials as well as the 13 Russian nationals already indicted by Mueller be brought to the U.S.
“Your first requests of Vladimir Putin needs to be: ‘Tell us which airport we can pick up the 25 Russians that tried to interfere with the fundamentals of our democracy,’ ” Gowdy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“If you really claim you had nothing to do with it then you should be as shocked as we were that your military was being used to impact our election.”
But Trump’s top aide signaled that would not be the approach the president takes.
“We have asked and the Russians have agreed that it will be basically unstructured,” national security adviser John Bolton said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’re not looking for concrete deliverables here.”