Democrats: Let Mueller do job

News reports say Trump hid details of meetings with Putin

WASHINGTON -- Recent news reports raise new questions about President Donald Trump's possible ties to Russia and emphasize the need to ensure that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation reaches its conclusion without interference, Senate Democrats said Sunday.

The New York Times reported Friday that the FBI had opened an investigation in 2017 to determine whether the president had worked, knowingly or unknowingly, on behalf of Russia and against U.S. interests. On Saturday, a Washington Post article said Trump went to great lengths to hide details of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to a separate report in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn't have official note-takers present during a more than two-hour meeting with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017. Many top administration officials never were briefed on the discussion, the Journal said, citing several officials familiar with the matter.

The Russians asked to have a note-taker present, but Trump asked then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to take notes with the intention of relaying the details to relevant officials afterward, the newspaper reported.

According to The Washington Post, U.S. officials learned of Trump's actions after the Hamburg meeting when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed, officials said, are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States' main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said, there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump's face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia supported through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS

The reports build on previous questions about Trump's connections with Russia that need to be investigated, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. Kaine in 2016 was the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in the election.

Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in that election must be allowed to finish to provide answers, Kaine said.

That process will involve seeking assurances this week during the confirmation hearing for William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney general, said Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat.

"Bill Barr had better give us some rock -- ironclad, rock-bottom assurances in terms of his independence and his willingness to step back and let Mueller finish his job," Durbin said on ABC's This Week.

Trump lashed out Saturday at the New York Times story, which said his firing of former FBI Director James Comey prompted the FBI to open an investigation. The president said he fired Comey for cause and that the investigation was started "for no reason and with no proof" of wrongdoing. In an interview Saturday night, Trump also said he "couldn't care less"' if details from his conversations with Putin were released.

"It's so ridiculous, these people make it up," Trump told Jeanine Pirro on Fox News Channel's Justice With Judge Jeanine. He added, as he did on Twitter on Saturday, that he'd been tougher on Russia than recent U.S. leaders.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union that Trump should be judged by his actions in response to questions about whether he was compromised by Russia and that investigations should "get past the innuendo."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on NBC that he'll consider whatever evidence is produced by Mueller but added, "I'm not going to base it on unsubstantiated media reports."

The staff of Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has already sent 51 letters asking for documents related to investigations involving Trump that the panel may open, according to a story Sunday night on CBS' 60 Minutes. The issues include the private use of government-owned aircraft by Cabinet members and the flow of foreign money into Trump's businesses.

"We've got to hit the ground, not running, but flying," Cummings said.

HELSINKI MEETING

It is not clear whether Trump has taken notes from interpreters on other occasions, but several officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout after the president held a two-hour meeting with Putin in Helsinki last year. Unlike in Hamburg, Trump allowed no Cabinet officials or any aides to be in the room for that conversation.

Trump had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders, outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg, with only Putin's interpreter present. Trump also had a brief conversation with Putin at a Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month.

Senior Democratic lawmakers describe the cloak of secrecy surrounding Trump's meetings with Putin as unprecedented and disturbing.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that his panel will form an investigative subcommittee whose targets will include seeking State Department records of Trump's encounters with Putin.

"It's been several months since Helsinki, and we still don't know what went on in that meeting," Engel said. "It's appalling. It just makes you want to scratch your head."

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Putin's policies have been "almost parroted" by Trump. The latest news reports bolster the case for opposing the Treasury Department's plans to lift sanctions on three Russian companies linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, Warner said on CNN.

He said Democrats want to vote this week to ensure the sanctions are preserved.

"As more and more of this information comes out about ties between Trump and Trump officials and the Russians, it is the worst time to signal that we are going to take the pressure off oligarchs like Deripaska," Warner said.

Information for this article was contributed by Mark Niquette and Matthew G. Miller of Bloomberg News; and by Greg Miller, John Hudson, Josh Dawsey and Julie Tate of The Washington Post.

A Section on 01/14/2019

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