
As mentioned in the Trump Tweets thread, President Donald Trump, while attending the G20 Summit in Japan, met with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in their first meeting since Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian Investigation Report was made public.
During the photo-op, President Trump is asked if he is going to tell the Russian President not to meddle in future U.S. Elections.
He jokingly tells Putin not to meddle.
Trump has a smirk on his face as he "asks" Vladimir Putin not to meddle in the 2020 election in the weakest possible manner during their meeting at the G20 pic.twitter.com/LUa5kR3zE0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2019
In this clip of the exchange the sound quality is poor, however, it shows that joining in on the laughter is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Prompted by a reporter's question, Trump tells Putin: "Don’t meddle in the election, please."
— Bloomberg (@business) June 28, 2019
Putin laughed after hearing the translation. And the U.S. president shook his head and smiled. https://t.co/uNorQr7EzH pic.twitter.com/TcTRYlxGBX
According to the Mueller Report, which is broken down into two volumes, the first covering the Russian Election interference, explains that “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.”
As the News Blender covers on Saturday and Sunday, with the Propaganda Watch series, which focuses on the Russian interference via Social Media websites, the Mueller Report, explains that was not the only way Russia attempted to help candidate Donald Trump, by swaying the election in his favor in 2016.
At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.
Mueller Report pg. 4. PDF pg. 12.
The GRU according to the report, “stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the DCCC and DNC. In mid-June the stolen materials were shared with the public through “fictitious online personas “DCLeaks” and “Guccifer 2.0.”” The GRU would later release additional materials through WikiLeaks.
This is not the first time that President Trump dismissed Russian Election interference.
During the first debate which was September 2016 between he and Hillary Clinton, he said, “I don’t think anyone knows it was Russia,” that hacked the DNC email server.
Mueller Report explains on pg. 1, PDF pg. 9 that, “Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials-hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government-began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November.”
By the time of the first debate both candidates would have been receiving security briefings. Shortly after winning the nominations for their parties, the candidate’s were warned that Russia would try to infiltrate their campaigns as NBC News reported in December of 2017, both teams were asked to notify the FBI if such outreach should occur, the warning came in July of 2016.
By the first debate candidate Trump, would have also been made aware that his son, Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kusher, campaign manager, Paul Manafort would have met in the now infamous Trump Tower meeting, in June 9th, 2016, in the hopes of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian Government as “part of Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump.” (pg 6. PDF pg. 14).
As the News Blender reported after the two world leaders met in Helsinki, President Trump and Putin, held a joint-presser, during which President Trump was asked, who did he believe the U.S. Intelligence Community, that the Russian government hacked the DNC, or did he believe Putin, who says the Russian government did not meddle in the U.S. Election.
President Trump sided with Putin, saying in part, “I will say this I don’t see any reason why it would be…,” Russia.
Reporter to @POTUS: Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you sir is, who do you believe? https://t.co/ayZoKGvWxk pic.twitter.com/b5ad79963g
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 16, 2018
Prior to President Trump leaving the U.S. for Japan, he is asked about his meeting with Putin, he tells the report, what the two leaders discuss, is “none of your business.”
Asked whether he plans to bring up 2020 election meddling with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, Pres. Trump says he'll have a "very good conversation with him," adding: "What I say to him is none of your business." https://t.co/MHZXL3dieD pic.twitter.com/w1PVWOxc9p
— ABC News (@ABC) June 26, 2019
For What It’s Worth.
How is Russian State Run media covering the laugh shared between Russia and the U.S., at the U.S.’s expense?
#Russia's state TV finds it amusing that Trump was sucking on a mint, apparently concerned about the freshness of his breath, while waiting for Putin to arrive.#G20Summit #G20 pic.twitter.com/Y21wZEH6ld
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 28, 2019
#Russia's state TV continues to emphasize that Trump was "jokingly asking Putin to stop interfering in the U.S. elections." They point out that in response, Putin laughed and "promised nothing."#G20Summit #G20 #G20OsakaSummit pic.twitter.com/n4OtYN1oDQ
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 28, 2019
In order to keep this article under 1000 words, and trust me, there is tons more I could include in the article, just from Mueller’s Report, during the same presser with Putin from the G20 Summit, the two bounded over their disdain for Journalists.
In Russia, journalists have been killed or beaten in retaliation for their reporting. Today, Trump said approvingly to Putin about the press: “You don’t have this problem but we do.” https://t.co/oqCasMDnxu
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 28, 2019