President Donald Trump talks to reporters during a meeting with Dr. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under President Richard Nixon, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, in Washington.
The Trump administration downplayed the threat, but a senior official acknowledged the White House had been misled about the role of the Russian photographer, who was employed by a state-run news agency. The official requested anonymity to discuss matters of security.
President Trump said in a tweet on Thursday that Russian Federation is laughing at the USA because of the Democratic party's obsession with Russian Federation - but President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov don't appear to be paying much attention.
Though, you know, TASS is a Russian government news agency. "We had an official photographer in the room, as did they", spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday.
The meeting comes after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone last week about the war in Syria for the first time since Trump ordered a missile strike against a Syrian government air base last month after an alleged chemical weapons attack by the regime.
Following Wednesday's meeting between Lavrov, Kyslyak and Trump, Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that the Kremlin was "cautiously optimistic" over the meeting. The ambassador was also not mentioned in the official White House account of the meeting. "I am an individual who is not in the public eye and I've never commented on my work before, but, this hysteria around my photoshoot at the White House, has forced me to write this post", read the post. He wrote a message to his US colleagues on Facebook today saying that he went through the usual screenings.
On January 26, deputy AG Sally Yates informed the White House that Mike Flynn had been compromised by the Russians.
South Korea's Progressive New President Is Open to Visiting Pyongyang
Moon's Democratic Party said he was briefed on the status of the North Korean military and South Korea's military readiness. Abe also said he is hoping to meet with Moon at the earliest possible date to exchange views of mutual interest.
The White House has come under criticism after photos emerged of Donald Trump meeting with Russian officials.
Speaking of kidding, former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice did her own tweeting in response to the White House official's complaint that the White House was "tricked".
Colin Kahl, former vice president Joe Biden's national security adviser, asked if having a Russian photographer in the Oval Office was a good idea, to which David S Cohen, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, replied "no, it was not". "But any breach at all would be catastrophic".
Conversations between Kislyak and former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, led to the president firing Flynn for lying and telling Mike Pence that the two did not discuss sanctions against Russian Federation.
US intelligence agencies concluded with "high confidence" that Russian Federation tried to affect the outcome of the 2016 election, an allegation Lavrov has denied repeatedly.
But hopes and good wishes aside, the academic also warned the Russian side against any sort of unconditional trust in Trump.
Jill Colvin contributed reporting from Washington.
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