President Trump sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin along with Sen. Rand Paul when he traveled to Moscow this weekend, the Kentucky Republican and Russian officials confirmed.
“I was honored to deliver a letter from President Trump to President Vladimir Putin’s administration,” Paul tweeted. “The letter emphasized the importance of further engagement in various areas including countering terrorism, enhancing legislative dialogue and resuming cultural exchanges.”
Paul announced a trip to Moscow last week in support of Trump’s policy of “engaging around the world,” an effort made more literal by his function as a courier in addition to his own meetings. The mention of “enhancing legislative dialogue” dovetails with one outcome of Paul’s discussion with a Russian counterpart, who hopes to foster a round of meetings between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and senior Russian lawmakers.
“The letter was received through diplomatic channels,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. “We expect that the president’s administration will receive it shortly.”
Paul also discussed the possibility of interlegislative meetings with a senior Russian diplomat and a top lawmaker.
“The issue at hand is trying, perhaps, to organize a new meeting, this time at the level of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee during the autumn session,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee for the upper chamber of the Russian legislature. “That is, before the end of this year.”
Those discussions follow a series of meetings between another group of Republican senators and Russian officials, part of a July congressional delegation visit that took place during the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, Finland.
“Identify half-a-dozen legislators on both sides that meet on a regular basis, develop a relationship, so you can really have an agenda,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told the Washington Examiner, noting that he chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe. “It’d make sense for me to kind of spearhead this thing and establish this task force; I’m happy to do it. But again, I want to do it within the structure of the State Department as well. I’m not going to go out and freelance this thing.”
