Trump's invitation to Putin draws rebukes from Democrats and his intelligence chief

Donald Trump’s invitation to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to visit Washington DC later this year drew a swift and negative response from Democrats and an apparent rebuke from one of his own top intelligence advisers.

The news broke amid ongoing fallout from Trump’s recent meeting with the Russian leader in Helsinki where Trump sided with Putin over the judgment of his own intelligence services as to whether or not Russia tried to subvert the 2016 election.

Since then Democrats, diplomats and others also have been aggressively pushing to learn details of what the president and Putin spoke about during their one-on-one meeting at which only translators were present.

The New York senator Chuck Schumer said in an email statement: “Until we know what happened at that two hour meeting in Helsinki, the president should have no more one-on-one interactions with Putin. In the United States, in Russia, or anywhere else.”

News of a second meeting seemed to catch many people off-guard. Director of national intelligence Dan Coats, after learning on stage at an Aspen security conference that the president had invited the Russian president to a return summit in the American capital, offered a warning.

“If I were asked that question, I would look for a different way of doing it,” he said, when asked if he thought another one-on-one meeting was a good idea.

Last week, following Trump’s widely panned summit with the Russian president, Coats offered a wary assessment at odds with the president’s desire for a closer relationship with the former head of the KGB.

Coats reminded the audience that a Russian-orchestrated novichok nerve agent attack in southern England “should have told the world that if you think the Russians are trying to be good neighbors, this is the kind of thing they still do”.

Ted Deutch, the Democratic Florida representative, issued a Twitter call-out to the Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan: “Hey, @SpeakerRyan, didn’t think I’d have to say this, but do NOT invite Putin to address a joint session of a Congress.”

Norm Eisen, head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and former Obama ethics czar, said: “Friends, if this happens, lets plan the mother of all marches in DC – to peacefully demonstrate against Trump doing to the US what his BFF Putin did to Russia. RT if you are with me.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders announced on Twitter that Trump had directed national security advisor John Bolton to extend the invitation to Putin for a “working level” dialogue between the two leaders in the fall.