FOREIGN POLICY/RUSSIA/SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for over two hours Friday [7-7-17] afternoon, discussing interference in US elections and ending with an agreement on curbing violence in Syria.
But a diplomatic dust-up immediately broke out after the session when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Trump accepted Putin’s assurances there was no Russian involvement in the 2016 American election.
The dispute only underscores the challenges that remain in the fraught relationship between the United States and Russia, whose 2016 election meddling has hung over the Trump White House for months as multiple investigations proceed in Washington.
Trump opened the session by ‘raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election,’ US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in an off-camera briefing after the meeting. Russia asked for ‘proof and evidence’ it was involved, which the US did not produce in the meeting.”
-Dan Merica and Kevin Liptak, “US, Russia disagree over what Trump and Putin actually said to each other,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 7, 2017 04:05pm