Trump-Putin meeting expectations tempered

The Trump administration dampened expectations for today’s meeting in Helsinki between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.“It isn’t a summit,” Jon Huntsman, the US ambassador to Russia, said yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I’ve heard it called a summit. It’s a meeting.”Trump faces intensifying pressure after Friday’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges of hacking computer systems of the Democratic Party, a state election board and a company supplying voter verification software. Some Republicans have urged Trump to forcefully confront Putin about the election meddling, while Democratic lawmakers urged the president to scrap the summit altogether.John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said it would be “silly” for Trump to demand extradition of the Russians, as some lawmakers and others have urged.“I think it’s pretty silly for the president to demand something that he can’t get legally,” Bolton said on ABC’s This Week.“For the president to demand something that isn’t going to happen puts the president in a weak position, and I think the president has made it very clear he intends to approach this discussion from a position of strength.”Bolton also said the US is not looking for “concrete deliverables” from Putin.The meeting – Putin’s fourth with a US president – would be “basically unstructured,” he said.In an interview with CBS conducted on Saturday and broadcast yesterday, Trump said he may ask Putin to extradite the 12 Russians. “Well, I might,” Trump said when asked about it. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Trump said he’s going into Helsinki with low expectations, according to an excerpt of the interview. “I’m not going in with high expectations.” Huntsman, on Fox News Sunday, said he expects Russia’s “malign activity” in elections – including in the US and in the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union – would be “one piece of”’ the agenda today.Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s wary of Trump meeting alone with Putin because the Russian president is a trained KGB agent and Trump is not known for his preparation.“Frankly, I think he’ll take advantage of this president,” Warner said on CNN’s State of the Union yesterday.“We need other individuals from his administration in the room so we know at least someone will press the Russians on making sure they don’t interfere in future US elections.”Trump promised on Friday to “absolutely, firmly ask the question” about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. But he also downplayed expectations for a confession.Trump previously has shown little appetite for pressing the issue. After meeting with Putin in Vietnam last November, he said he was done discussing it and that he believed the Russian leader’s denials were sincere.