March 29, 2024
Helsinki summit: Is Trump ‘Making America Great Again’?
HELSINKI — President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Monday that the two leaders discussed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, although the Russian leader denied that his government tried to sabotage the election and Trump offered little pushback to the autocrat’s claims.

Trump called the U.S. investigation of the interference “a disaster for our country.”

Concluding their first formal one-one-one summit here Monday, Trump said his message regarding the Russian interference “was a message best delivered in person” during the meeting, during which the two leaders “spent a great deal of time” discussing the Kremlin’s interference. Putin insisted publicly that the “Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere in internal American affairs,” and Trump declined to dispute his assertions, instead saying Putin “has an interesting idea” about the issue of interference.
“There was no collusion,” Trump said at a joint news conference with Putin. “I didn’t know the president. There was nobody to collude with. There was no collusion with the campaign.”

Trump said that he holds “both countries responsible” for the frayed relations between the two nations and attacked special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, calling it a “disaster for our country.”

Putin later confirmed that he did want Trump to win in 2016, “because he talked about normalizing relations” between Russia and the United States.

Appearing at the joint news conference with Putin after the talks in the Finnish capital ended, Trump said he and Putin discussed their disagreements “at length.” He added: “Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed, as of about four hours ago.”
The summit began hours after Trump blamed his own country, rather than Russia, for the hostilities between their two nations.

Speaking first at the news conference, Putin said the talks took place “in a frank and businesslike atmosphere,” adding: “I think we can call it a success.”

He said that although bilateral relations have been “going through a complicated stage,” there was “no solid reason” for that. “The Cold War is a thing of the past,” he said.

He added that Trump “mentioned the so-called interference of Russia in the American election” in 2016. Putin again denied any involvement by the Russian state and said any evidence of interference can be analyzed through a joint working group on cybersecurity.

Putin said later in response to a question that U.S. investigators possibly could come to Russia to participate in the questioning of suspects after a dozen Russian intelligence officers were indicted in the United States on charges of election interference.

Elaborating, Putin said representatives of the Mueller probe could be present at interrogations of suspects in Russia — as long as Russians would be able to do the same at the questioning of U.S. intelligence agents that Moscow suspects of carrying out crimes on Russian soil. Any questions about Russian interference in the U.S. elections, he said, should be resolved by the courts and according to existing intergovernmental agreements.
“Let the Mueller commission send us a request, and we will do the work necessary to respond,” Putin said. “We can expand this cooperation — but we will then also expect from the U.S. side access to people who we believe are members of the intelligence agencies.”

In response to questions, Trump said that both countries were to blame for the deterioration of relations. “I do feel that we have both made some mistakes,” he said. He added that “there was no collusion” between his campaign and Russia, and he lamented that the special counsel’s investigation into the matter has had an impact on U.S.-Russian relations, the Washington Post reported.
Story Date: July 17, 2018
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