Watchdogs Sue Trump Administration Over Missing (translator) Notes From Putin (Helsinki) Meeting [View all]

[Dennis Donovan]

https://time.com/5609279/pompeo-lawsuit-trump-putin-notes/

BY VERA BERGENGRUEN
JUNE 18, 2019
A new lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke the law by allowing President Donald Trump to seize the notes from a key meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and failing to take any steps to preserve records of their other face-to-face meetings.

The lawsuit filed by American Oversight and Democracy Forward, two progressive non-profit government watchdog organizations, says that the Federal Records Act requires Pompeo to preserve the meeting notes prepared by State Department employees.

“President Trump has taken unusual, and in some cases extreme, measures to conceal the details of these meetings, not only from the public at large, but also from key members of his administration,” the filing says. As a result, there is a “total absence” of a detailed record of Trump’s five in-person interactions with Putin over the last two years, even in classified files, the filing says.

Tuesday’s lawsuit comes a week before the next G20 summit, which will take place in Osaka, Japan, on June 28 and 29. Although there is no official meeting planned, the Kremlin has said the two leaders could meet informally.

“On the eve of another meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin, Secretary Pompeo’s actions ensure that our relationship with Russia remains shrouded in secrecy, with the American government left in the dark,” said Anne Harkavy, the executive director of Democracy Forward.

While the lawsuit alleges that Pompeo repeatedly failed to document the president’s meetings with Putin, it focuses on Trump’s actions at the G20 in Hamburg in July 2017, where he met with the Russian president for two hours with no aides present. Trump “took possession of written notes documenting the meeting from the official who created them” and instructed them not to discuss what was said at the meeting with other members of his administration, the filing says, citing details first reported by the Washington Post.

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Again, like everything else, what is he trying to hide???