Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that reports President Donald Trump attended a second, previously undisclosed meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin are “deeply troubling.”
“I don’t think there’s anything normal about the President having an hour-long meeting with Vladimir Putin outside the presence of any American witness, anyone on his staff, any high-ranking National Security Council people, to know what the President said, what the President represented,” Schiff said on CNN.
Several outlets reported late Tuesday that Trump and Putin had a second, informal meeting at the G20 summit earlier in July in addition to their official bilateral meeting. According to the Washington Post, Putin was accompanied by his official interpreter and Trump was alone when the U.S. President left his place at a dinner at the conference to sit beside and speak to Putin for an hour.
“You have the prospect here of the most isolated ruler in the G20, that is Putin, now with the second most isolated leader, and regrettably that is our President,” Schiff said. “So these two isolated leaders on the world stage making common cause in a way that is not being witnessed by any of our national security officials, and that’s deeply troubling.”
