Leaked document: Putin lobbied Trump on arms control

By BRYAN BENDER

during their private meeting in Helsinki last month, including new talks on controlling nuclear arms and prohibiting weapons in space, according to a Russian document obtained by POLITICO.

A page of proposed topics for negotiation, not previously made public, offers new insights into the substance of the July 16 dialogue that even Trump’s top advisers have said they were not privy to at the time. Putin shared the contents of the document with Trump during their two-hour conversation, according to a U.S. government adviser who provided an English-language translation.

POLITICO also reviewed a Russian-language version of the document, which bore the header in Cyrillic “Dialogue on the Issue of Arms Control.” The person who provided the document to POLITICO obtained it from Russian officials who described it as what Putin had conveyed to Trump in Helsinki.

The White House declined to comment on the document Tuesday, aside from denying that Trump had received any actual paperwork. But on Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delivered a letter from Trump to Putin’s representatives in Moscow, calling for “further engagement” between the two leaders.

Read more at https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/07/putin-trump-arms-control-russia-724718