President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of
his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at
least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter
and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other
administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also
attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned
of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State
Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a
readout shared by Tillerson.
The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the
president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny
and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from
fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.
As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in
classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian
leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be
unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install
through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented
campaign of election interference.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is thought to be in the final stages
of an investigation that has focused largely on whether Trump or his
associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The new details about Trump’s continued secrecy underscore the extent to
which little is known about his communications with Putin since becoming
president.
More here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-concealed-details-of-his-face-to-face-encounters-with-putin-from-senior-officials-in-administration/2019/01/12/65f6686c-1434-11e9-b6ad-9cfd62dbb0a8_story.html