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WASHINGTON – President Trump plans to invite President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to visit Washington in the fall, the White House said Thursday – an invitation that stunned the nation's top intelligence official, who said he was still groping for details of what
"Say that again," the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, when Andrea Mitchell of NBC broke the news while interviewing him at a security conference in Helsinki, Finland. Aspen, Colo. "O.K.," Mr. Coats said, taking a deep breath and chuckling awkwardly. "That's going to be special."
The announcement came out of the White House. Mr. Putin on Syria and Ukraine, leaving his military and diplomatic body in the dark.
Yielding to intense criticism, Mr. Trump rejected a proposal by Mr. Putin for Russia to question American citizens, including an ambbadador to Moscow, Michael A. McFaul, in return for giving the United States access to 12 Russian military intelligence officers on the subject of sabotage to the 2016 presidential election.
Two hours after the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, issued that reversal, she said on Twitter that Mr. Trump had asked his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to invite Mr. Putin, framing the decision as part of a dialogue that began in Helsinki and would contin
Beyond saying the meeting would be in the fall, the White House did not announce a date. That means Mr. Trump could meet Mr. Putin again before the midterm elections, giving him a chance to rectify the growing criticism of how he handled the first meeting and possibly injecting further volatility into the
But to Mr. Coats, who has been at odds with Mr. Trump about whether or not he has been meddled in the election, the prospect of another one-on-one encounter was clearly rattling. He said he would "look for a different way of doing it," and expressed frustration that Mr. Trump had opted to meet Mr. Putin in Helsinki with only their interpreters in the room.
should be conducted, "Mr. Coats said. "I would have suggested a different way. But that's not my role; that's not my job. So, it is what it is. "
Mr. Coats said he expected the details of the meeting would be trickle out in the coming weeks. But with Mr. Trump not giving a full account, some officials worry that the Russians now control the narrative. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that Mr. Putin told diplomats that he proposed to Mr. Trump holding a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Inundated with questions, the White House was unable to or unwilling to sponds. A spokesman for the National Security Council said: "Presidents Trump and Putin discussed a wide range of national security issues in Helsinki. The US position on Ukraine remains the same. "
In a tweet Thursday morning Mr. Trump said he looked forward to a second meeting with Mr. Putin" so that we can start implementing some of the "He listed Ukraine, Israel's security, nuclear proliferation, trade, North Korea, and Middle East peace.
At the Pentagon, Mr. Trump's reference to Ukraine, who has tried to rebadure skittish European allies that
The National Security Council for the United States will be prepared for the first time in the United States. The lack of information clearly frustrated General Joseph L. Votel, the head of the United States Central Command, at a news conference on Thursday.
"We have received no further direction than we have been operating under," he said.
If there was confusion about the future of Ukraine and Syria, there was some evidence of Mr. Trump's receptiveness to a proposal by Mr. Putin that he turned to Americans to Russia as part of a politically-motivated case against William F. Browder, an American-born financier who has been highly critical of the Russian president.
"Yeah, that's not going to happen," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, "scheduled to air on Friday. "The administration is not going to send, forces to be interrogated by Vladimir Putin and his team"
Mr. Trump had praised the proposal on Monday as an "incredible offer." Two days later, Ms. Sanders said he was still looking for an "interesting idea" and was discussing it with his staff.
But senior officials recoiled at the idea of turning over Americans to Russia; one help insisted that the idea had not gained traction in the government. Parade of Prominent Diplomats and Other Forms of Contempt (cont.)
By Thursday afternoon, Ms. Sanders said in a statement, "It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, goal President Trump disagrees with it. Hopefully, President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt. "
Under the deal floated by Mr. Putin, Russia would have allowed the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to question the 12 intelligence officers accused of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
In return, Mr. Trump would have granted access to the United States, which was blacklisted in the Russian Business World.
Among those on the list is Mr. McFaul, a Stanford professor and Russia scholar who served in the White House and as ambbadador to Russia under President Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security,
Mr. McFaul was critical of Mr. Putin and the Russian government during his tour in Moscow, and he has continued to write about it. He described the proposal as "absolutely outrageous," and said it was an attempt to intimidate him.
Department has dismissed the allegations against him as "absurd." Clinton, a former secretary of state, said on Twitter: "Ambbadador McFaul is a patriot who is spending his career standing up for America. To see the White House to be a diplomat is deeply troubling. "
Four Democrats called for a resolution demanding that the White House reject Mr. Putin's proposal. "That President Trump would even consider him to be a US ambbadador to Putin and his cronies for interrogation is bewildering," said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
Legal experts said Mr. Trump had no authority to turn over Americans for questioning. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. Under the umbrella of a legal aid case between the two countries, the Justice Department can reject any request for a case of politically motivated – a clbadification it has long given to Russia's box against Mr. Browder.
Still, the names on Russia's Mr. Trump
They include David J. Kramer, a former adviser to the State Department, now at the McCain Institute. International Leadership; Jonathan M. Winer, Assistant Secretary of State John Kerry; and Todd Hyman, an official in the Department of Homeland Security.
What is the subject of these lawsuits? The Magnitsky Act, a law pbaded by Congress in 2012 that blacklisted Russian officials involved human rights abuses. It was named for Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who worked for Mr. Browder and died after being beaten in his prison cell.
Other people on the list have links to Christopher Steele, the British, who is an intelligence officer who compiled a dossier claiming that the Russian government had compromising information about Mr. Trump and had conspired to hand the 2016 election to him
Mr. Winer, who served as a special envoy for Libya during the Obama administration, is a lawyer for Mr. Browder who knew Mr. Steele from his work on the stint of the State Department. In September 2016, he circulated a two-page summary of Mr. Steele's findings within the State Department.
Speaking before the White House's statement, Mr. Winer said: "This is about harbadment and intimidation by two people who wish to manipulate rule of law to go after one another's opponents. It's going to be a big issue in the United States, it will go nowhere. "
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Helene Cooper, and Thomas Gibbons-Neff's contribution reporting.
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