Tag

#Helsinki

2 incidents

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

Helsinki Summit: Trump Sided With Putin Over His Own CIA on Election Interference

Trump and Putin met privately for approximately two hours with only translators present; there was no U.S. notetaker. (In 2019, The Washington Post reported that Trump had gone to unusual lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Putin, in one instance taking possession of his interpreter's notes.) At the public press conference, Trump said he didn't 'see any reason why it would be Russia' that interfered in the election — contradicting the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community. When asked the next day, Trump claimed he had misspoken and meant to say 'wouldn't' instead of 'would.' The statement provoked condemnation from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, and dozens of Republican members of Congress.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

Refusing to Confront Russian Election Interference: Capitulation to Putin at Helsinki

Standing next to Putin at a joint press conference, Trump declined to affirm the intelligence community's unanimous assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit him. He also refused to implement congressionally-mandated sanctions against Russia following the Salisbury chemical weapons attack and on other grounds. The Senate Intelligence Committee's 2020 bipartisan report confirmed not only Russian interference but that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared internal polling data with a Russian intelligence operative.