Putin denies election hacking after President Trump pressed him, Tillerson says

Eight months after an unprecedented US election — one that US intelligence agencies say the Russian government tried to sway — President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat for their first meeting on July 7, a friendly encounter that ended in confusion over whether President Trump accepted assurances that the Kremlin was innocent of any wrongdoing during the campaign.

President Trump, believed to be the intended beneficiary of the Russian meddling, emerged from the extraordinary meeting — which dragged so long that President Trump’s wife tried once to break it up — with a deal including Russia and Jordan on a partial Syrian ceasefire. The agreement would mark the first time Washington and Moscow had operated together in Syria to try to reduce the violence. But there were no grand bargains on US sanctions on Russia, the Ukraine crisis or the other issues that have divided the nations for years. The meeting, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, opened with Trump telling Putin it was an “honor to be with you.” In the closed-door discussion, Trump pressed Putin “on more than one occasion” on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who attended the two-hour-and-16-minute meeting, told reporters. Sec Tillerson said “President Putin denied such involvement” but agreed to organize talks “regarding commitments of noninterference in the affairs of the United States and our democratic process.”