Russian President Vladimir Putin floated an offer for members of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s team to “come and work” with Russian investigators, President Donald Trump said during a joint press conference Monday.
Trump called it “an incredible offer.”
Putin floated the offer to Trump during a closed-door, one-on-one meeting amid a summit between the two leaders being hosted in Helsinki, Finland.
In the joint presser that followed that meeting, Putin said that his country would allow the special counsel to “send an official request” to the Kremlin to question the 12 Russian intelligence officers charged with crimes related to election meddling just three days earlier by Mueller.
According to a translation of Putin’s remarks, the Russian leader specified that “we would interrogate” and “hold the questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy to some crimes” if Mueller made such a request.
Trump took that offer a step further while responding to the question of whether he believes his own intelligence agencies, who say Russia meddled in the election, or Putin, who says Russia did not.
“President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said, adding that Putin “offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.”
In that response, Trump refused to side with his own administration’s intelligence community, which unanimously agrees that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He instead blamed “both countries” for the strained relationship, and questioned the whereabouts of the Democratic National Committee server hacked by the Russians.
“I really do want to see the server,” Trump said after contending that “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia who hacked the opposition party.
When Putin explained his offer during the press conference, he also accused U.S. officials of committing crimes against Russia, and said his government would want to question them in return.
