Russian foreign minister hints Trump may have had more undisclosed meetings with Putin
President Donald Trump may have had even more undisclosed meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Russia’s top diplomat.
In an interview with NBC News, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov implied that Trump and Putin may have crossed paths at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany more than just the two previously reported times.
“They might have met even much more than just three times,” Lavrov said dismissively.
He went on to joke that “maybe they went to the toilet together.”
On Tuesday it was reported that Trump had had a previously undisclosed hour-long meeting with Putin at a dinner for foreign leaders during the summit. The only other person present for that meeting was Putin’s translator. Trump had two other well-publicized and largely choreographed encounters with Putin prior to that meeting.
“When you are brought by your parents to a kindergarten, do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?” Lavrov said, comparing the two presidents to sociable toddlers.
“After the dinner was over ... I was not there … President Trump apparently went to pick up his wife and spent some minutes with President Putin ... so what?” Lavrov said of Trump’s encounter with Putin.
Trump and the Russian president’s relationship has been the subject of intense scrutiny as the investigation continues into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during their interference in the 2016 presidential election.
On Thursday, an official in Putin’s government told Russian media that the two countries were still in communication about a joint cybersecurity task force, despite Trump’s recent protestation that they were not.