Tag: Vladimir Putin

White House rejects Dem request for documents on Trump-Putin communications

The White House is rejecting a sweeping request from House Democrats for documents and interviews related to President Trump’s communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a letter obtained by The Hill, White House counsel Pat Cipollone asserts that the president’s diplomatic communications are confidential and protected by executive privilege and describes the requests as beyond Congress’s legitimate realm of inquiry.

Cipollone also argues that such a disclosure could have a detrimental impact on the ability of Trump or future presidents to conduct foreign relations.

View the complete March 21 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Senators unveil new plan to counter Vladimir Putin’s energy influence in Eastern Europe

Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson leading bipartisan effort to improve energy infrastructure

Bipartisan lawmakers are unveiling Thursday the latest Capitol Hill effort to counter Vladimir Putin’s energy activities in Eastern Europe.

This time, a contingent of senators led by Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is introducing a bill that would authorize as much as $1 billion in financing for the next few years for energy sector projects in Europe.

That includes natural gas and electricity infrastructure. It is in an effort to counter Russia’s role as a dominant provider of energy in Eastern Europe.

View the complete March 7 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

House Dems demand records from Trump’s communications with Putin

Three Democratic chairmen in the House are pressing for records and interviews related to President Trump‘s communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin, following reports that he sought to destroy records detailing such contacts.

Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform committees, respectively, wrote separate letters to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo asking that they turn over personnel records detailing the president’s contacts with Putin.

The three chairmen also want access to the interpreters who sat in on Trump’s meetings with Putin.

View the complete March 4 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Russia says US asked for advice on dealing with North Korea

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday said that the U.S. asked for Moscow’s advice in approaching this week’s summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The Associated Press reported that Russian state media revealed comments from Lavrov in which he said Moscow believes the U.S. should offer “security guarantees” to Pyongyang in exchange for a deal to abandon its nuclear arsenal.

Lavrov said the U.S. “is even asking our advice, our views on this or that scenario” ahead of the summit.

View the complete February 25 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump administration to suspend nuclear treaty with Russia

The Trump administration announced Friday that it would suspend its obligations under a decades old Cold War arms control pact with Russia on Saturday, citing Moscow’s violations of the treaty.

The White House announced the decision to stop complying with the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in a statement from President Trump early Friday, just before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the move in remarks from the State Department.

“Russia has refused to take any steps to return to real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days,” Pompeo said.

View the complete February 1 article by Morgan Chalfant and Rebecca Kheel on The Hill website here.

Vladimir Putin takes the stage in D.C.

Christopher Geary (Vladimir Putin) and Max Woertendyke (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in the world premiere of “Kleptocracy” at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Credit: Courtesy C. Stanley Photography

World premiere at Arena Stage looks at the ruthless rise of the Russian president

You can’t get far in Washington, D.C., without someone bringing up Russian President Vladimir Putin and his efforts to interfere in U.S. democracy.

So there’s no more fitting venue than the nation’s capital for a world premiere about the rise of Putin from a KGB grunt to the most powerful man in post-Soviet Russia.

“Kleptocracy,” which opened this month at Arena Stage, charts that course largely through his rivalry with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who at the time controlled a Russian oil company but wanted to sell it to an American firm such as Exxon or Chevron — a move Putin saw as a threat to the Russian state.

View the complete January 30 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

If Only Boss Putin Would Order Trump To End Shutdown

Credit: /Stevo Vasiljevic, Reuters

So the world’s greatest negotiator has taken 800,000 hostages and threatens to shoot himself in the foot unless he gets his wall. Too bad the Democrats can’t subcontract the job of confronting his demands to Vladimir Putin. Faced with the Russian dictator, our bold leader rolls over on his back like a puppy dog.

Furthermore, Trump’s been doing it for years. And lying his big, flabby posterior off about it the whole time. For all intents and purposes, the President of the United States is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the organized crime syndicate otherwise known as the Russian government.

In Moscow, they call them “oligarchs,” fabulously wealthy individuals essentially granted monopoly control over large sectors of the Russian economy in exchange for fealty to Putin. It’s a way of doing business our own would-be strong man has always admired. A coarse blowhard with a taste for golden toilets, Trump fits right in.

View the complete January 23 article by Gene Lyons on the National Memo website here.

Moscow Skyscraper Talks Continued Through ‘the Day I Won,’ Trump Is Said to Acknowledge

Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, said Mr. Trump recalled that the discussions about building a Trump Tower in Moscow were “going from the day I announced to the day I won.” Credit: Erin Schaff, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump was involved in discussions to build a skyscraper in Moscow throughout the entire 2016 presidential campaign, his personal lawyer said on Sunday, a longer and more significant role for Mr. Trump than he had previously acknowledged.

The comments by his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani indicated that Mr. Trump’s efforts to complete a business deal in Russia waned only after Americans cast ballots in the presidential election.

The new timetable means that Mr. Trump was seeking a deal at the time he was calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. He was seeking a deal when he gave interviews questioning the legitimacy of NATO, a favorite talking point of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. And he was seeking a deal when, in July 2016, he called on Russia to release hacked Democratic emails that Mr. Putin’s government was rumored at the time to have stolen.

View the complete January 20 article by Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt on The New York TImes website here.

Former Bush official Richard Painter: “Substantial chance” Trump is being blackmailed by Putin

President Donald Trump has fulfilled almost all of Vladimir Putin’s dreams and plans to expand the global power of Russia by diminishing the power, respect and influence of the United States.

The New York Times reported this week that during the past year Donald Trump repeatedly and in private expressed the desire to withdraw the United States from the NATO alliance. Beyond an almost heretofore unthinkable betrayal of one of the most successful alliances in modern history — and one founded by the United States after World War II to counter the influence and power of the former Soviet Union in a war — such a move could be seen as surrendering Europe to Vladimir Putin and Russia.

This is one more example of Donald Trump’s behavior that validates the logic and reasoning behind the counterintelligence investigation opened by the FBI in 2017, in order to determine whether the president of the United States, is actually a Russian asset.

View the complete January 17 article by Chauncey DeVega on the Salon website here.

Rebuking Trump, over 130 House Republicans challenge plans to lift sanctions against Putin ally

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska walk to attend the APEC Business Advisory Council dialogue in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev, AP

In a rebuke to the Trump administration, 136 Republicans joined House Democrats Thursday to oppose a Treasury Department plan to lift sanctions against companies controlled by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The overwhelming 362 to 53 vote will not prevent the Trump administration from easing sanctions on three companies connected to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as Senate Republicans narrowly blocked a similar measure on Wednesday.

But the House vote does mean that a majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill oppose President Trump’s efforts to soften punitive measures on a Russian oligarch — a rejection with potential implications for the administration’s continued stance on Russia, and for the GOP lawmakers who backed the plan to ease the sanctions.

View the complete January 17 article by Karoun Demirjian and Jeanne Whalen on The Washington Post website here.