Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday defended President Trump’s private conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said holding these private talks without offering a public readout opens the chance for similar talks later with Russia that could yield progress on several key issues.
“These are important decisions about how much to disclose about private conversations we’ve having, because everyone knows that you may have an expectation that you may have another private conversation one day,” Pompeo said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “And the absence of their belief that that private conversation has the capacity to remain in that space reduces the freedom to have those conversations.”
Pompeo was pressed on the issue by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who said the private meeting allowed the Russian press to claim that Putin got the better of Trump. He quoted Russian media saying that the result was “fabulous” for Russia and that Trump sided with Russia over U.S. intelligence officials on the question of whether Russia meddled in the U.S. election.
“That’s the Russia media characterizing a meeting, and we have no readout to dispute any of it,” Flake said.
But when asked to respond, Pompeo said he had similar private meetings with North Korean officials, which he said were needed to help build trust. He also dismissed the way the North Korean press characterized those meetings.
“I had a private conversation with North Koreans,” Pompeo said. “We didn’t issue a readout on the conversations quite intentionally, and the North Korean press chose to characterize it.”
“We thought it was in America’s best interest not to respond tit-for-tat about the nature of that conversation,” he added. “We knew the truth, we knew what had taken place there, and you know, it’s the North Korean press, and so I assume that most reasonable people will discount it fairly significantly, the same way that one might the Russian press.”
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