MOSCOW — Putin Offers to Provide a ‘Record’ of Trump’s Disclosures to Russian Envoys. Asserting himself abroad with his customary disruptive panache, President Vladimir V. Putin on Wednesday jumped into the furor over President Trump’s disclosure of classified information to Russian diplomats, declaring that nothing secret had been revealed and that he could prove it.
Mr. Putin, who has a long record of seizing on foreign crises to make Russia’s voice heard, announced during a news conference in Sochi, Russia, the Black Sea resort that has become his equivalent of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, that he has a “record” of the American president’s meeting at the White House with two senior Russian officials and was ready to give it to Congress — so long as Mr. Trump does not object.
Referring to reports that Mr. Trump had revealed highly classified intelligence, Mr. Putin said, “It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next.”
Mr. Putin’s offer to release a record of what was said, made after a meeting with the visiting prime minister of Italy, Paolo Gentiloni, suggested less an effort to create clarity over what Mr. Trump actually said in the Oval Office last Wednesday than a headline-grabbing assertion of his own authority and a reminder that he should not be ignored.
To that end, the Russian government has been angling for months for a meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, who has met a host of foreign leaders since he took office in January but only spoken with the Russian president by telephone. They are expected to get together during a summit meeting of the Group of 20 nations in Germany in July.
As with many of Mr. Putin’s maneuvers, his offer to release a record of the White House meeting with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and its Washington ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, seemed designed to unnerve and confuse.
For a start, the offer left everyone guessing about what kind of “record” Mr. Putin has of his diplomats’ meeting with Mr. Trump. Intentionally or otherwise, Mr. Putin muddied the waters by using a Russian word that can mean both audio recording and a written account. A Kremlin aide, Yury Ushakov, later clarified that Moscow has in its possession a written transcript, not a tape.
“This was a well prepared impromptu move,” Mr. Solovey said. “The goal is to demonstrate the superiority of the Russian political system, in which major decisions can be made swiftly and effectively. From the Russian point of view, what happens in Washington these days demonstrates the total inability of the U.S. president to make any decisions that are needed in this situation.”
Mr. Putin’s remarks are unlikely to please the White House, which has given conflicting accounts of what Mr. Trump told the Russians and has resisted giving details of their conversation.
