Russia Scandal Fires Grow As Trump Holds Two Hour Plus Putin Meeting With Staff Kept Out

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Trump met with Putin with no notes allowed for more than two hours and also demanded that staff be kept out to avoid information about the meeting being made public.

The New York Times reported:
Only six people attended the meeting: Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson; Mr. Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov; and two interpreters.

The Russians had agitated to include several more staff members in the meeting, but Mr. Trump’s team had insisted that the meeting be kept small to avoid leaks and competing accounts later, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the carefully choreographed meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity around the matter.

The attendees at the meeting were the mastermind behind the Russian hack (Putin), his right hand man in the US (Lavrov), the former head of Exxon who is a Putin pal (Tillerson), and the president who is under federal and congressional investigation for potentially colluding with Russia to win the presidential election (Trump).

Leaks aren’t the reason why Trump doesn’t want details of the meeting to get out. The last time that this president met with Russian officials he leaked highly sensitive classified information. The fact that Trump is under federal criminal investigation because of his behavior on the Russia scandal, and he still decided to try to hide details of the meeting, is jaw-droppingly dumb.

The fact that Trump is trying to keep his meeting with Putin secret suggests that this president has something to hide, as he managed to take the Russia scandal and turn it into an inferno because he refuses to be transparent.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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