Donald Trump said on Saturday he believes Vladmir Putin’s denials of Russian involvement in the manipulation of the 2016 presidential election.
However, he appeared to contradict himself on Sunday when he said he was “with our agencies” on the question of Russian interference.
Speaking at a news conference in Hanoi on Sunday, he was asked about his comments that he believed Putin’s reassurances given by the Russian president on the sidelines of Saturday’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Vietnam.
“As to whether I believe it or not, I’m with our agencies, especially as currently constituted,” Trump told a news conference in Vietnam. “As currently led, by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies.”
The president’s comments were criticised by senator John McCain who said in a tweet that there was “nothing America First about taking the word of KGB colonel [Putin]” over the US intelligence community.
Trump was also quickly countered by his own CIA chief, Mike Pompeo. A statement issued by the agency said: “The director stands by and has always stood by the January 2017 intelligence community assessment entitled: Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections. The intelligence assessment with regard to Russian election meddling has not changed.”
On Saturday Trump also launched a tirade against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin.
The investigation could cost “millions and millions of lives”, Trump claimed, by hindering agreement with Moscow over conflicts in Syria and Ukraine and a looming confrontation with North Korea.
The president’s remarks, made to reporters as Air Force One flew to Hanoi from Da Nang, represented his open disregard for the views of US intelligence agencies which have concluded that Russia did interfere in multiple ways in the 2016 election, with the aim of helping Trump’s candidacy.
The president disparaged officials who worked for Barack Obama, saying former CIA chief John Brennan, ex-director of national intelligence James Clapper and James Comey, the FBI director he fired in May, were “political hacks”.
“I mean, give me a break,” Trump said. “So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker.”
Despite his qualifying remarks on Sunday, he suggested he put more faith in Putin’s word.
“Every time he sees me he says ‘I didn’t do that’ and I really believe that when he tells me that,” Trump said on Saturday. “He really seems to be insulted by it and he says he didn’t do it. He is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. You have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he has nothing to do with that.”
TimelineTrump's tour of Asia
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The US president must grapple with the thorny issues of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions as well as trade wars in Asia on one of the trickiest diplomatic tours in decades.
Trump warns of the North Korean threat and says Japanese orders for US-made military equipment will help keep Japan safe. Read more
The North Korea rhetoric softens as the president suggests he is open to diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis. Read more
Xi Jinping rolls out the red carpet for Trump, who lavishes praise on his host and blames his American predecessors for the "huge" trade deficit between the US and China. Read more
Trump swings through Da Nang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, abruptly ending his diplomatic streak with a tirade against “violations, cheating or economic aggression” in the region. Read more
On the final leg of his tour, Trump hails his great relationship with President Rodrigo Duterte, who shares some populist and mercurial characteristics with his guest, and stands accused of masterminding a brutal crackdown on drugs. Read more
The president described the investigation led by Mueller, a former FBI director appointed by Trump’s own justice department, as “Democrat-inspired” and a “hit job”.
Trump also claimed the investigation was preventing a normalisation of relations with Putin and therefore could cost countless lives around the world. He suggested Russia was not helping more to persuade Pyongyang to disarm “because of the lack of the relationship that we have with Russia, because of this artificial thing that’s happening with this Democratic-inspired thing”.
“I think [Putin] is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country. Because again, if we had a relationship with Russia, North Korea which is our single biggest problem right now, it would help a lot,” he said.
“You know you are talking about millions and millions of lives,” Trump said.
“When we can save many, many, many lives by making a deal with Russia having to do with Syria, and then ultimately getting Syria solved, and getting Ukraine solved, and doing other things, having a good relationship with Russia is a great, great thing. And this artificial Democratic hit job gets in the way. It gets in the way. And that’s a shame. Because people will die because of it, and it’s a pure hit job, and it’s artificially induced and that’s shame.”
John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee responded angrily. Accusing the president of “taking the word of a KGB colonel over that of the American intelligence community”, the Arizonan added: “Vladimir Putin does not have America’s interests at heart.
“To believe otherwise is not only naive but also places our national security at risk.”
Trump met Putin briefly on three occasions at Da Nang. The two exchanged a jovial handshake at the gala dinner on Friday and stood next to one another in a “family photo” of leaders on Saturday. The US press pool including photographers were blocked from covering the day’s events, including the Trump-Putin meetings. Only Fox News and the official White House photographer were granted access.
Putin dismissed accusations Moscow meddled in the US election. “Everything about the so-called Russian dossier in the US is a manifestation of continuing domestic political struggle,” he said.
Putin was asked if he had followed the mounting investigation into alleged contacts between Trump’s campaign team and Russians, including a woman who claimed to be Putin’s niece.
“Regarding some sort of connections of my relatives with members of the administration or some officials,” he said, “I only found out about that yesterday from [his spokesman Dmitry] Peskov.”
He also said: “I don’t know anything about [the investigation]. I think these are some sort of fantasies.”
The two leaders produced a joint statement on Syria, restating their determination to defeat Islamic State and their desire for a United Nations-brokered solution.
“It’s going to save tremendous numbers of lives and we did it very quickly, we agreed very quickly,” Trump said.
The statement lists longstanding areas of agreement between the US and Russia on the importance of reviving mostly dormant UN-mediated negotiations known as the Geneva process, which envisages constitutional reform and free elections. In the past, Washington has disagreed with Moscow on how the process should be carried out and what role Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad would play.
Assad’s forces, with Russian and Iranian support, have been gaining ground. The Syrian president has consequently shown little real interest in a peace deal. Asked if Russia would be able to bring Assad to the table, a state department official, quoted on CNN, said: “We’re going to be testing that, we’re going to find out.”
Quick GuideWhat you need to know about the Trump-Russia inquiry
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How serious are the allegations?
The story of Donald Trump and Russia comes down to this: a sitting president or his campaign is suspected of having coordinated with a foreign country to manipulate a US election. The story could not be bigger, and the stakes for Trump – and the country – could not be higher.
What are the key questions?
Investigators are asking two basic questions: did Trump’s presidential campaign collude at any level with Russian operatives to sway the 2016 US presidential election? And did Trump or others break the law to throw investigators off the trail?
What does the country think?
While a majority of the American public now believes that Russia tried to disrupt the US election, opinions about Trump campaign involvement tend to split along partisan lines: 73% of Republicans, but only 13% of Democrats, believe Trump did “nothing wrong” in his dealings with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
What are the implications for Trump?
The affair has the potential to eject Trump from office. Experienced legal observers believe that prosecutors are investigating whether Trump committed an obstruction of justice. Both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – the only presidents to face impeachment proceedings in the last century – were accused of obstruction of justice. But Trump’s fate is probably up to the voters. Even if strong evidence of wrongdoing by him or his cohort emerged, a Republican congressional majority would probably block any action to remove him from office. (Such an action would be a historical rarity.)
What has happened so far?
Former foreign policy adviser George Papadopolous pleaded guilty to perjury over his contacts with Russians linked to the Kremlin, and the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide face charges of money laundering.
When will the inquiry come to an end?
The investigations have an open timeline.
Trump renewed his assault on the Mueller investigation at a time when it is making significant advances, each time a step closer to the president. His former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and a senior fundraiser have been indicted for money laundering and conspiring to defraud the authorities.
Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is under investigation. His lawyer on Friday denied a report that he had negotiations with Turkish representatives about kidnapping a dissident cleric living in the US.
A former foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, has pleaded guilty to perjury about his contacts with Russian surrogates and officials. Although he personally announced Papadopoulos’s hiring in March 2016, describing him as “an excellent guy”, since the guilty plea was made public the president has said he was a “young, low-level volunteer” who “few people knew”.
However, court papers show Papadopoulos was in frequent contact with senior campaign staff, mostly about plans to bring Trump and Putin together. He met a UK foreign office minister, Tobias Ellwood, at the UN in September 2016. The New York Times reported on Saturday that Papadopoulos helped edit a major foreign policy speech in April of that year, and that one of the officials he was in touch with was Stephen Miller, still one of Trump’s closest advisers.
