Trump told Russians in 2017 he was not concerned about election
meddling: Washington Post
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[September 28, 2019]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President
Donald Trump told two Russian officials in a 2017 meeting that he was
not concerned about Moscow's meddling in the U.S. election, which
prompted White House officials to limit access to the remarks, the
Washington Post reported on Friday.
A summary of Trump's Oval Office meeting with Russia's foreign minister
and its ambassador to the U.S. was limited to a few officials in an
attempt to keep the president's comments from being disclosed publicly,
the Post said, citing former officials with knowledge of the matter.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment
from Reuters.
A whistleblower complaint about a July phone call in which Trump urged
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic
political rival Joe Biden is at the heart of the U.S. House of
Representatives impeachment inquiry launched this week.
A member of the U.S. intelligence community who filed the complaint
against Trump said notes from other conversations the president had with
foreign leaders had been placed on a highly classified computer system
in a departure from normal practice in a bid to protect information that
was politically sensitive, rather than sensitive for national security
reasons.
Trump's 2017 meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and
Ambassador Sergei Kislyak was already considered controversial after it
was learned that Trump disclosed highly classified information about a
planned Islamic State operation.
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President Donald Trump addresses a news conference on the sidelines
of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in
New York City, New York, U.S., September 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan
Ernst
On election interference, Trump told Lavrov and Kislyak he was not
concerned about Russian meddling because the United States did the
same in other countries, the Post reported.
CNN, citing people familiar with the matter, said efforts to limit
access to Trump's conversations with foreign leaders extended to
phone calls with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters that
procedures for handling records of Trump's conversations with world
leaders had changed early in his tenure after calls with Mexico's
president and Australia's prime minister were leaked.
(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)
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