July 19, 2018 04:44 PM UTC

Trump Invites Putin to White House; DNI Still in the Dark

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• by: Colorado Pols

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats was a guest speaker at the Aspen Security Forum today, where he was interviewed on stage by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. As the Washington Post reports, Coats still has no idea what was discussed during President Trump’s Helsinki meeting:

Coats on Thursday acknowledged that he did not know what took place in President Trump’s one-on-one meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, even as the White House announced plans to invite the Russian leader to Washington for a second meeting in the fall.

“Well, you’re right. I don’t know what happened in that meeting,” Coats told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in an interview at the Aspen Security Forum. He said that while it was Trump’s prerogative to decide how to conduct the meeting, he would have advised the president otherwise.

“If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way,” Coats said. “But that’s not my role; that’s not my job. So, it is what it is.”

Coats, who on Monday issued a statement standing by the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, also said that he would have liked to have seen Trump strike a different tone in his extraordinary 46-minute news conference with Putin.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced today that President Trump has formally invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the White House in the coming months. Check out this clip of Mitchell informing Coats about the news that Trump wants to have a sleep-over with his best buddy Vlad (h/t to Pols user Pseudonymous for the video):

Here’s the exchange:

MITCHELL: We have some breaking news. The White House has announced on Twitter that Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.

COATS: [after a brief pause] Say that again?

[laughter erupts in the audience, and Coats can’t help but chuckle].

COATS: Did I hear you…[sighs]…okay…That’s going to be special.

Trump is bringing Putin INTO THE WHITE HOUSE this fall, just as the mid-term elections are reaching their peak. Also today, the Justice Department announced plans to alert the public about ongoing Russian attempts to influence the 2018 election, which should make Putin’s U.S. visit even more uncomfortable than we thought possible.

For every Republican candidate in America, we have just four words: Sucks to be you.