US President Donald Trump used his recent meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to distract public attention from the ongoing impeachment process and to feign toughness against Russia for his base, Art Franczek, the president of the American Institute of Business and Economics in Russia, told Sputnik on Thursday
ST PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th December, 2019) US President Donald Trump used his recent meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to distract public attention from the ongoing impeachment process and to feign toughness against Russia for his base, Art Franczek, the president of the American Institute of business and Economics in Russia, told Sputnik on Thursday."They sort of prearranged it on the day that articles of impeachment voted against Trump. They are giving themselves a political cover and he [Trump] is giving himself a cover against all these hearings," Franczek said.
Franczek added that Trump used the photo opportunity to counteract the "bad imagery" left after his last Oval Office meeting with Lavrov.
That meeting, which took place in May 2017, was followed by widespread media speculation that Trump shared classified information with Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.
"Trump took a very hard line against Russia and it was reiterated by [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo when saying that Russia had interfered in 2016 elections and of course Lavrov denied it. What they doing is they are playing it for the domestic audience. Trump may potentially say now that he met with Lavrov and was very hard on Russia," Franczek went on to postulate.
Following the December 10 meeting in the White House, Trump posted a picture with Lavrov at the Oval Office desk on his Twitter account, with accompanying text saying that he had a "very good" meeting with Russia's top diplomat where many issues, including nuclear arms control and election meddling, were discussed.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Lavrov denied that the two spoke about election meddling.
The impeachment inquiry against Trump was launched by House Democrats in September after a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump abused his power and pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a July 25 phone call to investigate the possible corruption of political rival and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, who once sat on the board of a Ukranian energy company Burisma.
On Tuesday, House Democrats introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
