President Donald Trump repeatedly has taken extraordinary measures to hide the details of his face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In unprecedented moves, The Washington Post reports, on at least five separate occasions President Trump concealed details of those conversations, “including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.”
The Post found that “there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years.”
Trump’s actions are “part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.”
It is standard practice for all conversations between the President of the United States and other foreign leaders to be recorded via notes, and for those notes to be archived, regardless of their classification level.
One former deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, told the Post, “is not only unusual by historical standards, it is outrageous.”
The Post’s report comes less than 24 hours after a bombshell New York Times report that revealed President Trump has been the target of a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, which began almost immediately after he fired Jim Comey. The FBI was concerned President Trump could be actively working for Russia. That investigation was taken over by Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he was appointed in May of 2017.
There is no indication that investigation has concluded.
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