Trump had secret meeting with Putin at G-20

[Bob Juch]

News now that Trump and Putin had a second, secret, meeting at the G-20 summit.

When are the Republicans going to realize he's treasonous?

[Bob Juch]

It was just Trump, Putin, and Putin's translator. Not having an American translator is a breach of national security protocols.

[Bob Juch]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/worl ... eting.html

[jarnon]

Trump had secret meeting with Putin at G-20

The hourlong conversation in Hamburg, Germany, took place at a private dinner of the world leaders at a conference hall on the banks of the Elbe River during the Group of 20 economic summit meeting.

Maybe Bob's definition of "secret" is different from mine. To me, it's not secret if it's done in front of 18 other world leaders.

[Spock]

Bob-The 1980's called, they want their foreign policy back.

Maybe, he was just promising Putin that he would have more flexibility in a second term.

[Bob78164]

Trump had secret meeting with Putin at G-20

The hourlong conversation in Hamburg, Germany, took place at a private dinner of the world leaders at a conference hall on the banks of the Elbe River during the Group of 20 economic summit meeting.

Maybe Bob's definition of "secret" is different from mine. To me, it's not secret if it's done in front of 18 other world leaders.

Private is probably a better word. But I find it very troubling, particularly in light of the connections known and still being discovered between Donny, his campaign, and Russia, that the only other witness to that conversation was the Russian translator. Who knows what secrets Donny gave away this time? --Bob

[Bob Juch]

Trump had secret meeting with Putin at G-20

The hourlong conversation in Hamburg, Germany, took place at a private dinner of the world leaders at a conference hall on the banks of the Elbe River during the Group of 20 economic summit meeting.

Maybe Bob's definition of "secret" is different from mine. To me, it's not secret if it's done in front of 18 other world leaders.

It's "secret" if they sneak off and don't report it.

[Bob Juch]

Mr. Putin is not the head of a democracy. But Mr. Trump certainly is. Somebody better remind him of that and fast, and the rest of his family as well.

Secret meetings with the Russians? Forgotten meetings with the Russians? What the heck is going on?

The cloud of suspicion is thicker than my late grandmother's Texas chili. We grant a presumption of innocence in our court system, but a prosecutor with a case is allowed to pursue it. And we have a case here. We have a special counsel looking into it, but we also have a press, the Congress and all the others who need to be keeping this in check.

Presidents should be able to have back channel communications. It is not the public’s right to know everything. But this is a direct communication with an adversary who has tried to undermine our democracy. This is a foreign power that has many suspicious ties to the President, his family, and his closest aides.

What is President Trump talking to Mr. Putin about? What secret deals or promises were made? What are he and his closest confidants trying to hide?

It’s high time we started getting some satisfactory answers. This is not about politics. It’s about the sanctity of our democratic institutions.

The Presidency of the United States is a great responsibility. But in that responsibility is a need for accountability. Putin does not have a transparent government. We do, or at least are supposed to have one.

[BackInTex]

[flockofseagulls104]

Mr. Putin is not the head of a democracy. But Mr. Trump certainly is. Somebody better remind him of that and fast, and the rest of his family as well.

Secret meetings with the Russians? Forgotten meetings with the Russians? What the heck is going on?

The cloud of suspicion is thicker than my late grandmother's Texas chili. We grant a presumption of innocence in our court system, but a prosecutor with a case is allowed to pursue it. And we have a case here. We have a special counsel looking into it, but we also have a press, the Congress and all the others who need to be keeping this in check.

Presidents should be able to have back channel communications. It is not the public’s right to know everything. But this is a direct communication with an adversary who has tried to undermine our democracy. This is a foreign power that has many suspicious ties to the President, his family, and his closest aides.

What is President Trump talking to Mr. Putin about? What secret deals or promises were made? What are he and his closest confidants trying to hide?

It’s high time we started getting some satisfactory answers. This is not about politics. It’s about the sanctity of our democratic institutions.

The Presidency of the United States is a great responsibility. But in that responsibility is a need for accountability. Putin does not have a transparent government. We do, or at least are supposed to have one.

Says Dan Rather, one of the founding fathers of Fake News.

[silverscreenselect]

Maybe Bob's definition of "secret" is different from mine. To me, it's not secret if it's done in front of 18 other world leaders.

From the NYT article:

Nevertheless, the meeting was confirmed by the White House only on Tuesday, after reports surfaced that some of the guests had been surprised that it occurred. The dinner discussion caught the attention of other leaders around the table, some of whom later remarked privately on the odd spectacle of an American president seeming to single out the Russian leader for special attention at a summit meeting that included some of the United States’ staunchest, oldest allies.

While the leaders-and-spouses dinner was on Mr. Trump’s public schedule, the news media was not allowed to witness any part of it, nor were reporters provided with an account of what transpired. Mr. Trump’s traveling press contingent did note, however, that his motorcade left the dinner four minutes after Mr. Putin’s did.

“Pretty much everyone at the dinner thought this was really weird, that here is the president of the United States, who clearly wants to display that he has a better relationship personally with President Putin than any of us, or simply doesn’t care,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a New York-based research and consulting firm, who said he had heard directly from attendees. “They were flummoxed, they were confused and they were startled.”

The encounter occurred more than midway through the lengthy dinner, when Mr. Trump left his chair and approached Mr. Putin, who had been seated next to the first lady, Melania Trump. It was described to Mr. Bremmer by other guests as lasting roughly an hour and not initially disputed by a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Experts in United States-Russia relations said such an encounter — even on an informal basis at a social event — was a concern because of its length, which suggested a substantive exchange, and because there was no note taker or national security or foreign policy aide present.

“We’re all going to be wondering what was said, and that’s where it’s unfortunate that there was no U.S. interpreter, because there is no independent American account of what happened,” said Steven Pifer, a former ambassador to Ukraine who also specializes in Russia and nuclear arms control. “If I was in the Kremlin, my recommendation to Putin would be, ‘See if you can get this guy alone,’ and that’s what it sounds like he was able to do,” added Mr. Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Nope, nothing strange here.

[jarnon]

This Manchester Guardian column could have been written by SSS (if his writing was that good):

The Observer view on Donald Trump’s unfitness for office

Sadly, that's the opinion of most people in Europe and much of the world.