Donald Trump 'ignored advisers' to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his re-election

Donald Trump reportedly ignored warning from experience advisers and congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election.

The US president was instructed with a note that read ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE’, but he did so anyway, a senior administration official has said.

The White House said in a statement it is a ‘fireable offence and likely illegal’ to leak Trump’s briefing papers to the press.

It is not known if Trump, who prefers oral briefings, read the note prepared by his national security team before the call.

National security adviser HR McMaster briefed the president in person before the call in the White House residence.

Trump said he and Putin might meet ‘in the not too distant future’ to discuss the arms race and other matters.

He said that during their hoped for meeting the two men would probably discuss Ukraine, Syria and North Korea, among other things.

‘I suspect that we’ll probably be meeting in the not too distant future to discuss the arms race, to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control, but we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have,’ Trump said.

The briefing document with guidance for the Putin phone call is accessible only to a select group of aides, and the White House expressed anger on Wednesday that it was leaked to the media.

‘If this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the President’s briefing papers. Leaking such information is a fireable offence and likely illegal,’ the White House said in an official statement.

It was an unusual threat. Other revelations of classified material – including partial transcripts of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders – have not garnered specific threats of termination or criminal action.

He did not raise Russia’s meddling in the US elections or its suspected involvement in the recent poisoning of a former spy in Salisbury.

‘An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,’ said Senator John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and has pressed the Trump administration to respond aggressively to Russia’s interference in the US presidential election.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a frequent Trump critic, called the president’s call ‘odd’.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump ‘can call whomever he chooses’ but noted that calling Mr Putin ‘wouldn’t have been high on my list’.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said it was ‘no surprise’ that Putin was re-elected, commenting that some people were paid to turn out to vote and opposition leaders were intimidated or jailed.

Nauert also cited a preliminary report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe that said Russia’s election took place in an overly controlled environment that lacked an even playing field for all contenders.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s call and noted that former president Barack Obama made a similar call at the time of Putin’s last electoral victory.

‘We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,’ Ms Sanders said.

Russia has received global condemnation after Britain blamed Moscow for the recent nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Russia has denied the accusation.

Putin received calls from a number of other foreign leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Many others, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, sent congratulatory telegrams.

The White House previously said on Monday that it was ‘not surprised by the outcome’ of Sunday’s presidential election in Russia and that no congratulatory call was planned.