A new Bloomberg report claims that President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead to Rod Rosenstein to announce the indictments of 12 Russians before his meeting with Vladimir Putin.
President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead to announce new Russian election-hacking indictments before his meeting with Vladimir Putin rather than after — in the hopes it would strengthen his hand in the talks, according to accounts from people familiar with the decision.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein went to Trump last week and offered him the choice: before or after the Putin summit on Monday in Helsinki? Trump chose before, ultimately putting the issue into the spotlight just 72 hours before the high-stakes meeting, the people said.
In the end, Trump faced a torrent of bipartisan criticism for suggesting he was leaning toward accepting the Russian president’s denial that his government was behind hacking during the 2016 presidential election, even though Trump had hoped the indictment of 12 Russians on charges of meddling would give him the upper hand, one of the people said.
This is quite shocking. Many Pro-Trump outlets/Political personalities viewed the announcement as a Deep State attack on Trump.
BREAKING: DOJ official tells Wired Sources that Robert Mueller’s indictments likely intended to ‘distract’ from yesterday’s damaging Peter Strzok testimony
— Wired Sources (@WiredSources) July 13, 2018
