The same day House leadership announced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the President welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Last time the two met, in 2017, Trump revealed highly classified information and told Lavrov that he wasn't concerned with Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
Trump has repeatedly minimized or outright denied Russia's concentrated efforts to manipulate the American presidential election, instead focusing on conspiracy theories that the Democratic National Convention worked with Ukraine to frame Russia for election interference.
In a Fox Business interview on Tuesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said that the President and Lavrov would discuss election security.
Watch below.
Gidley stressed that conversations with foreign rivals are necessary and—though the meeting with Lavrov would focus primarily on gun control—the pair would also discuss national security and election security.
People weren't exactly heartened that the man who invited Russia to hack his opponent's emails would be discussing election security with the representative of a government who recently attacked the United States.
Consistent with Russia's past claims, Lavrov asserted that the Kremlin played no role in meddling with the U.S. election.
U.S. Intelligence officials are unanimous that Russia was behind the meddling.
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