Bolton says Trump and Putin will meet in Paris
National security adviser John Bolton announced Tuesday that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to meet in Paris next month.
Bolton, speaking to reporters after meeting with Putin in Moscow, said the details have yet to be worked out, but the meeting will happen during the Armistice Day celebration hosted by the French.
"So we will make the precise arrangements on that but it will happen in connection with the 100th anniversary, the celebration of the Armistice that the French are hosting on November the 11th," Bolton said.
The meeting comes as President Trump says he's pulling the U.S. out of the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Reagan-forged agreement that Bolton claims Russia is violating. Bolton emphasized his belief that Russia is violating the agreement.
"It's Russian violations of the treaty, in our view, that have gotten us this to this point, and it's something that's been going on for five years, if not more," Bolton said in one interview with a Russian media outlet.
Bolton also told one Russian news outlet he brought up election meddling in his conversations with Russian officials, though he also said that their meddling didn't have an impact on the election. The only impact it had, he suggested, was to worsen relations between Moscow and Russia.
"Well, I raised this question of meddling in U.S. elections again today," Bolton told one Russian outlet. "And I understand the Russian position that Russian citizens keep getting indicted for it in the United States, which is a judgment by the prosecutors that they can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard we have in our judicial system. The point I made to Russian colleagues today was that I didn't think, whatever they had done in terms of meddling in the 2016 election, that they had any effect on it, but what they have had an effect in the United States is to sow enormous distrust of Russia."
Bolton told reporters Tuesday he had briefed Putin on what Mr. Trump, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been doing regarding Saudi Arabia, after the Saudis acknowledged journalist Jamal Khashoggi died inside their consulate earlier this month But Bolton declined to say more about that, referring reporters to Vice President Mike Pence's remarks.
