A senior Russian lawmaker is dismissing media reports of an undisclosed conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U. S. President Donald Trump as sensationalist.
The Latest on investigations into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia (all times local) :
4: 20 a.m.
A senior Russian lawmaker is dismissing media reports of an undisclosed conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U. S. President Donald Trump as sensationalist.
The White House spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed on Wednesday that Trump and Putin spoke at a dinner for world leaders and their spouses at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Trump defended the dinner in a pair of angry tweets late Tuesday, saying it had been on his public schedule.
Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the information policy at the upper house of Russian parliament, on Wednesday lashed out at U. S. media for seeking details of “a secret conversation that didn’t happen.”
“They’re sick, ” Pushkov said.
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3: 50 a.m.
President Donald Trump had another, previously undisclosed conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Germany this month.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer and National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton confirmed that Trump and Putin spoke at a dinner for world leaders and their spouses at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
The conversation came hours after Trump and Putin’s first official face-to-face meeting on July 7, which was originally scheduled to last just half an hour but stretched on for more than two. The two world leaders were also captured on video shaking hands and exchanging a few words after they arrived at the G-20 summit of industrialized and developing nations earlier that day.
Anton would not specify the duration of the conversation. But he said the discussion was casual and should not be characterized as a “meeting” or even a less formal, but official, “pull-aside.”
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