A Russian photographer, who shot the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, criticised American media for its "hysteria" over the photoshoot.
The White House was evidently duped into believing that the Russian with the camera was the state photographer assigned to Lavrov, not also a member of TASS.
A White House official said the administration did not anticipate that the Russian government would allow its state news agency to post photographs of the meeting. They've distanced the decision from the FBI probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 campaign, only to later suggest Comey's firing would aid the investigation.
The photographer who stood feet from Trump as he talked with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, had told the White House that he was Lavrov's official photographer, the administration official said.
There was an 18-day gap between the heads up from former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates regarding Flynn's activities with the Russians and his removal by the White House. The Russian Foreign Ministry posted a photo of a smiling US President shaking hands with Lavrov on Twitter, adding odd and ironic optics to the questions already swirling around the White House over Comey's firing.
"(White House counsel Don) McGahn came back to me and did not sound like an emergency", Trump said of Yates' information about Flynn.
Microsoft unveils update to Windows, with brand new design and features
It lets users add elements of alternative reality to normal videos and uses artificial intelligence to edit videos automatically. It's called the "OneDrive Files On-Demand", which makes it easier to access cloud documents locally.
White House deputy spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that, with regard to photographs, proper protocol was followed during the meeting. Russian President Vladimir Putin requested during a recent phone conversation that Trump meet with Lavrov, the official said.
Jeff Mason, the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, responded to the president's tweets, saying that the White House briefings and press conferences "conducted in full view of our republic's citizens, is clearly in line with the spirit of the First Amendment".
The White House also shifted its stance on whether Comey's termination had anything to do with the Russian Federation investigation, at first saying it was not linked. But security experts said that the risk was real, if remote.
The photos of the U.S. president's meeting with the Russian foreign minister presented by TASS photographer Aleksandr Shcherbak triggered an unexpectedly harsh response from some USA mass media.
Colin Kahl, former vice president Joe Biden's national security adviser, asked if having a Russian photographer in the Oval Office was a good idea, to which David S Cohen, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, replied "no, it was not". He said on all three occasions, Comey said he was not the subject of the investigation.
Comments