WASHINGTON -- The White House on Wednesday pushed to next year President Donald Trump's planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a move that comes amid intensifying criticism of Trump's conflicting statements on Russian interference in U.S. elections.
"The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we've agreed that it will be after the first of the year," national security adviser John Bolton said in a statement, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has sharply criticized the investigation and has maintained that there was no coordination between Russia and his presidential campaign.
Last week, the White House announced that Trump had asked Bolton to invite Putin to Washington in the fall for a follow-up meeting to their summit in Helsinki this month.
Trump has faced bipartisan push-back in Washington over what critics decry as his overly accommodating approach to Putin, who the U.S. intelligence community determined personally ordered interference in the 2016 campaign aimed at helping the then-GOP nominee.
But Russia also did not immediately jump at the opportunity to schedule a second summit between the two leaders.
In Moscow, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Tuesday that the Kremlin had received a second summit invitation from Bolton several days after the Helsinki meeting but that no preparations were in motion.
Considering the current "atmosphere" in Washington, Ushakov told Russia's Interfax news agency, "it seems to me that for now, it would be right to wait for the dust to settle before having a businesslike discussion of all issues, but not now."
Ushakov said there were "other options" to consider for a bilateral meeting, including at the Group of 20 meeting, which both leaders are expected to attend, in Buenos Aires at the end of November.
Congressional Republicans, who have roundly rebuked Trump's performance alongside Putin in Helsinki, have warned the president against repeating it with the Russian leader in Washington.
The top Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both said this week that Putin would not be welcome for meetings on Capitol Hill, which customarily occur when a foreign head of state visits Washington.
"I'm one who thinks that it's a good thing for leaders of countries to talk," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters this week when asked about a second Trump-Putin summit. "But I would consider putting that one on the back burner for a while."
The meeting's postponement comes amid several signs that the White House is seeking to assuage some of the fears over U.S. Russian policy stoked by Trump's joint appearance with Putin.
As scrutiny increases of Russia's reported attempts to interfere in November's midterms, Trump will convene a National Security Council meeting Friday devoted to the issue of election security.
The White House also issued a declaration Wednesday ruling out the possibility of the U.S. recognizing Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. The statement follows reports that Putin raised the issue of a referendum on Ukraine in his meeting with Trump last week.
"The United States rejects Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine's territorial integrity is restored," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
The spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry brushed off the Crimea Declaration as just another U.S. policy that could easily change in the future. In a Facebook posting, Maria Zakharova cited the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord -- two Obama-era deals that Trump scrapped.
"We know the value of these 'fateful declarations,'" she said.
Russia has said Crimean voters approved the annexation in a referendum. The U.S. and its European allies have said the referendum was deeply flawed and illegal, as it was held without the consent of the government in Kiev.
POMPEO TESTIMONY
In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Pompeo sought to reassure lawmakers that Trump accepts the intelligence community's conclusion on Russian interference in 2016.
"He has a complete and proper understanding of what happened. I know. I briefed him on it for over a year," said Pompeo, who served as CIA director before Trump tapped him for the secretary of state job this spring.
He insisted Trump deeply respects the work of the intelligence community -- a notion the president left in doubt in Helsinki when he said he had to weigh its assertions about election interference against Putin's strong denials that it took place.
Pompeo offered what he described as "proof" that Trump holds Russia accountable when warranted, including the imposition of sanctions, the expulsion of diplomats and closing of a consulate, and the provision of arms to Ukraine, where the military is fighting Russian-backed separatists, among other steps.
Yet the skepticism among many in Congress was on full display, with Pompeo facing tough questions from lawmakers demanding to know what Trump and Putin discussed in their two-hour Helsinki summit and, more broadly, whether the administration has an overarching foreign policy plan at all.
"You come before a group of senators today who are filled with serious doubts about this White House and its conduct of American foreign policy," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a retiring lawmaker who has become one of Trump's sharpest critics.
He blasted a lack of information from the Trump administration and said many lawmakers have left their meetings at the White House without a clear sense that there is a coherent strategy in place.
"The administration tells us, 'Don't worry, be patient, there's a strategy here,'" Corker said. "But from where we sit, it appears that in a 'Ready, fire, aim' fashion, the White House is waking up every morning and making it up as they go."
"It's the president that causes people to have concerns," Corker said.
Pompeo replied by saying that some of Trump's comments "actually achieve important policy outcomes," but the administration should be judged by its actions rather than the president's words.
He later clarified that the president's words are indeed policy, prompting an angry exchange with the ranking committee member, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. Menendez said that Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas, would have been so angry that he would have had to have been peeled off the ceiling of the Capitol if President Barack Obama had said and done some of the same things as Trump.
When confronted with specific questions about what Trump and Putin discussed, Pompeo repeatedly recited U.S. policy, prompting senators to accuse him of withholding details about the discussions.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H, asked whether Trump talked to Putin about removing U.S. troops from Syria. In response, Pompeo said "there's been no change to U.S. policy."
"That's not exactly the question," Shaheen said.
Menendez repeatedly asked whether Trump and Putin discussed sanctions related to Crimea. Pompeo said it was U.S. policy not to lift sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crimea, but he did not answer the question directly.
"Presidents are entitled to have private meetings, I'm telling you what U.S. policy is here," Pompeo said.
"We don't know the truth of what transpired in those two hours," Menendez shot back.
Pompeo also testified on the status of negotiating North Korea's denuclearization, saying a great deal of work remains.
"There is an awful long way to go," Pompeo told lawmakers. He pledged that negotiations would not "drag out to no end."
Lawmakers pressed the top U.S. diplomat on whether the U.S. and North Korea reached a denuclearization agreement. Pompeo responded that North Korea's leadership "indicated that they fully understand the scope of what denuclearization entails."
When asked to detail verifiable evidence of progress toward denuclearization, Pompeo stated, "We are sitting at the table having conversations."
Pompeo also pointed to a report this week from an American research group that the North has begun dismantling its main missile-engine test site. The report was based on an analysis of satellite imagery by the website 38 North.
Information for this article was contributed by Felicia Sonmez, Karen DeYoung, Seung Min Kim, John Hudson, Carol Morello, Anne Gearan and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post; by Matthew Lee, Ken Thomas, Zeke Miller, Darlene Superville, Lynn Berry and Susannah George of The Associated Press; and by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Thomas Kaplan of The New York Times.
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