Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway says president ‘did not destroy’ records from meetings with Putin
White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway has said that Donald Trump did not destroy any notes from a meeting with Vladimir Putin and that “leaks” may have led the president to be secretive about his talks with the Russian leader.
A recent report from The Washington Post have alleged that Mr Trump went to “extraordinary” lengths to conceal his discussions with Mr Putin, including reportedly taking the notes from his interpreter after a meeting with the Russian leader in 2017.
Ms Conway told reporters that the president is “transparent”, and that the level of "leaks" during the administration would have justified a heightened sense of concern that his talks with Mr Putin would get into the public domain.
“The president at that time in 2017 was suffering from a great number of leaks, as you remember,” Ms Conway said on Monday morning outside the White House. “I think, week one or two of being here, his calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia had leaked. He had an oval office meeting in May of 2017, the contents of that leaked. And so there was great concern at the time”.
Democratic Representative Adam Schiff — the House Intelligence Committee chairman — has floated the idea of subpoenaing those notes. But, Ms Conway said when asked that nothing was destroyed.
“Nobody said he destroyed these notes. … This president has had one on one meetings with many different leaders as you know. … He’s very transparent to you, as you know,” Ms Conway said.
“I haven’t discussed this with him, but we were very concerned about — we’re always concerned about leaks obviously,” she added. “That’s what I know about it.”
US officials have indicated that Mr Trump’s reported concern about the contents of his meeting getting leaked have created an unusual situation for an American president, with as many as five face-to-face meetings between Mr Trump and Mr Putin lacking a physical record.
The president was, however, reportedly joined by then-Secretary of State Rex TIllerson during the 2017 meeting. It is not clear that Mr Tillerson kept notes on the meeting.
While speaking with reporters on Monday, Mr Trump said that he did not know anything about The Washington Post’s report on the notes from his 2017 meeting with Mr Putin.
“It’s a lot of fake news. That was a very good meeting; it was actually a very successful meeting,” he said, adding that they discussed several subjects including Israel and the natural gas pipeline in Germany that Russia is funding.
The news comes amid another report from The New York Times claimg that the FBI opened up an investigation to determine whether Mr Trump was working on behalf of Russia after he fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
On Sunday, Mr Trump called the suggestion “insulting” during an interview on Fox News, but did not explicitly deny being an agent of Russia.
He clarified on Monday morning when speaking to reporters outside of the White House: “I never worked for Russia”.
