Two different accounts of the manner in which Trump raised the issue of election interference
One from Tillerson; one from Lavrov.
Both of these accounts could be true on face value; they do not necessarily contradict each other. However, the Russian version goes into a lot more detail than the bare-bones statement by Tillerson. Probably both are shading things a little in their own favor.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/world/europe/g20-hamburg-trump-putin-protests.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
In a major shift, Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Putin on his country’s meddling in the 2016 election, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson told reporters after a long meeting between the two leaders on Friday.
But his Russian counterpart spun the exchange differently — claiming that the president “accepts” Mr. Putin’s oft-repeated denials that he had anything to do with attempting to swing the 2016 election to Mr. Trump.
“He began by raising the concern of the American people of Russian interference in the 2016 election,” Mr. Tillerson, who was present at the meeting, said of Mr. Trump. “He pressed him more than once.”
Speaking separately to Russian reporters in Hamburg, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei V. Lavrov, cast Mr. Trump in a more forgiving light.
“President Trump said that this campaign has already taken on a rather strange character, because over the many months that these accusations have been made, not a single fact has been presented,” Mr. Lavrov said. “President Trump said that he had heard the clear statements from President Putin about this being untrue, that the Russian leadership did not interfere in the election, and that he accepts these statements.”
Mr. Lavrov, a veteran diplomatic infighter, added one more detail: Mr. Trump, he said, had conceded “that certain circles in the U.S. are still exaggerating, although they cannot prove this, the topic of Russia’s interference with the U.S. election.”
An email to a spokesman for Mr. Trump wasn’t immediately returned.
= new reply since forum marked as read
