Putin Pressed Trump for Proof of Election Interference

Since the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election first surfaced, both the American media and congressional committees have been struggling to find any evidence to confirm it took place.

 Anti-Trump politicians and media figures keep touting the claims that U.S. intelligence agencies uncovered the intrusion, but no specific proof has been provided in public. All that’s happened is agency heads have alleged it without providing substantiation.

Savvy statesman that he is, Putin pressed President Trump to provide proof of the interference, but even the president has acknowledged in public that it’s likely to have occurred without citing any evidence. His answer to a press question in Poland indicated he had some doubts.

 Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who was in the meeting, said afterward that Trump accepted Putin’s assurances that Russia didn’t interfere in the election.  But Tillerson, who has publicly called out Russia for election interference in the past, said he was ‘not dismissing the issue in any way’ and did not echo that language.”

Part of the problem could be that revealing how such an intrusion happened could jeopardize national security methods to monitor government systems from hacking.

Tillerson said the president raised the issue more than once during the meeting, including at the very outset.

 The secretary of state told reporters afterward that Trump opened the conversation by “raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.”

Recognizing that the subject was one in which no agreement could be reached, President Trump decided to move the discussion along to more pressing issues. Tillerson characterized it as an “intractable disagreement.”

 The secretary of state acknowledged that Putin’s insistence that Russia did not interfere would leave the two countries at an impasse, at least for now. “It’s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question between the two nations,” he said. “So the question is, what do we do now?”

One issue that brought agreement was the need to establish a ceasefire and safe zone in southwestern Syria to relieve border pressure on Jordan and provide a safe haven for refugees.  The ceasefire will go into effect tomorrow.  Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has agreed to it.

 The fact that the meeting went beyond its scheduled time limit indicates the two men established an initial level of rapport that could lead to the United States and Russia finding more common ground in the fight against Islamic terrorism and in other areas.

 Speaking at the beginning of his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Vladimir Putin said that during his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, the two discussed Syria, Ukraine, counterterrorism, and drumroll, the “fight against cyber crime.”

Appearing before the press for a photo session, both men were gracious and complimentary of each other.

Earlier, during the press photo session, Trump told the media “President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think it’s going very well.”

“We’ve had some very, very good talks, we are going to have a talk now and obviously that will continue,” Trump added, saying there are hopes of “a lot of very positive things happening.”

“It’s an honor to be with you, thank you,” Trump concluded, offering his hand to Putin.

“I’m delighted to be able to meet you personally Mr. President,” Putin countered. “And I hope, as you have said, our meeting will yield positive result.”

“Spasibo [thank you],” the US leader added in Russian.

It will be interesting to see how the anti-Trump media tries to spin the meeting and keep the sinking Russia collusion story afloat. The failure of Congress and the media to find any evidence of collusion for almost a year shows that story has more holes than the four Japanese aircraft carriers the U.S. Navy sunk at the Battle of Midway in World War II.

Source: ZeroHedge