"I did not think" Putin extradite Russian agents charged, says Trump



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Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump in November at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Danang, Vietnam. (Jorge Silva / AP)

President Trump said Sunday in a new interview that he had not thought of urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to extradite the dozen Russian officials accused of hacking democratic emails, while continuing to blame Democrats for stolen emails that upset the 2016 presidential campaign.

"Well, I could," Trump said at a news conference. interview with CBS News on the extradition of indicted intelligence agents. "I did not think about that, but certainly I will ask questions about it, but again, it was during the Obama administration. was during the Obama administration. "

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. Trump also claimed that the GOP was not hacked in the same way during the 2016 campaign because the Republican National Committee was equipped with better cyber security.

"We had much better defenses, we said that by a number of people, we had better defenses, so they could not," Trump said during the interview. CBS. "I think the DNC should be ashamed to allow themselves to be hacked in. They had bad defenses and they could be hacked."

Friday's indictment of 12 service agents Russian secrets, accused of interfering in the 2016 campaign by hacking servers of the Democratic National Committee and stealing emails, adds another explosive The first public meeting of Trump on indictments simply noted the fact that the Hacking occurred under the Obama administration, rather than his own presidency – a line he again stressed during the CBS interview. He said several times during his European tour that he would raise the issue of electoral interference with Putin, but said that he does not expect Putin to confess to the interference and so he has little recourse.

Trump was personally briefed by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein shortly before leaving for his seven-day European trip, which covers Monday here in this northern capital with Putin's head-to-head summit.

Congressional Democrats had already called on Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin in light of the charges, detailed Friday by Rosenstein at a press conference. Senator John McCain of Arizona, a prominent Republican critic of the president, also urged Trump to cancel his summit with the Russian leader if he was "not ready to hold Putin accountable."

But the White House gave no indication The cancellation of the summit was even considered, and Trump said in his interview to the CBS that he was approaching the meeting with "low expectations And promised that "nothing bad" would emerge from the one-to-one discussion.

"I think it's a good thing to meet – I believe in meetings – I think having a meeting with President Kim was a good thing," Trump said, referring to his summit last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I think having meetings with the Chinese president was a very good thing.I think it's really good." J & # 39; So I have meetings with Russia, China, North Korea, believe it, nothing bad will come out of it, and maybe good will come out. "

L & # 39; range of topics, in addition to the electoral interference, that Trump said that he will raise with Putin includes the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, as well as an arms control agreement dating back to ## 147 ## Reagan era and the prospect of a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia in 2011.

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