Maine’s Congressional Delegation Is Critical Of Trump’s Summit Comments

The encounter, which took place in Helsinki Monday, has been overshadowed by a subsequent joint press conference held by Presidents Trump and Putin.

Putin spoke frankly on the topic of Crimea, saying that the U.S. delegation had expressed its view that the invasion was illegal.

Trump maintained Tuesdays summit with Putin went “even better” than his meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. “Sadly, it is not being reported that way – the Fake News is going insane!”

Wallace also confronted Putin with the allegations laid out Friday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which fingered 12 Russian intelligence officers for directing the operation to steal emails from the DNC and the Clinton campaign and target US election infrastructure.

The Perth parents of three children who died when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine have condemned the USA president Donald Trump for his refusal to hold the Russian president Vladimir Putin to account over the tragedy.

What did he say at the summit with Putin?

‘It was nothing short of treasonous.

Kimmel also opened his Live broadcast with an incredulous recap of the summit meeting, summarizing it as “a total win for Putin and a shameful day for America”.

And Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, tweeted: ‘What do the Russians have on @realDonaldTrump personally, financially, & politically?’

There have been calls to subpoena Gross before Congress to testify about what went down in the meeting between the 2 leaders. He was asked whether he holds Russian Federation accountable for “anything in particular”, Trump responded, “I hold both countries responsible”.

“Trump essentially disowned the results of his own intelligence services and believed Vladimir Putin”, said William Pomeranz, the deputy director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Some US politicians had called for the summit to be cancelled after 12 Russian military intelligence agents were indicted last week, accused of hacking Mrs Clinton’s election campaign.

For all the noise from congressional Republicans, there is little sign they will take meaningful steps to constrain President Trump such as holding up his nominees to the courts or senior administration positions, stalling legislation or starting new hearings into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russian Federation. “I entered the meeting with the firm conviction that diplomacy and engagement is better than hostility and conflict”, he said.

“I’m sure we’ll be meeting again in the future often”, he said.

Trump’s statements “amounted to an unprecedented refusal by a United States president to believe his own intelligence agencies over the word of a foreign adversary”, CNN says. “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today”. Trump did congratulate Putin on his victory, a source told CNN at the time.

The next day, in a head-spinning press conference at Trump Tower that was meant to be about infrastructure, he doubled down on his original comments, essentially taking back his denunciation and suggesting that some of the white nationalists were “very fine people”. “And I don’t think I need to point out that, at 54, there’s not a lot of core left”. So it was incredible and very, very disturbing, ‘ Clapper said Monday on CNN.

“This is another example of the Russian Federation’s disregard for human life and the rules based worldwide system and Russia must answer for its actions”, Hunt said.

And he voiced support for United States intelligence agencies – a day after he had refused to accept their findings on Russia’s election interference over Putin’s denials – and vowed to take action to prevent further attacks.