Trump will not release call transcripts without the permission of Vladimir Putin

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The U.S President Donald Trump would need to seek his Russian counterpart’s permission before releasing any transcripts of their conversations, said by the Kremlin. It is important that Trump has come under widespread scrutiny for allegedly having sought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s help to investigate alleged corruption involving leading Democratic presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden in exchange for military assistance. Trump released a 4-page summary of the call after an anonymous whistleblower complaint. The summary has argued showing no wrongdoing, though some critics have contended the nature of the conversation was incriminating. Point to be noted that Democratic leadership has started an impeachment inquiry to further investigate potential abuse of power.

On Monday, the state-run Tass Russian News Agency reported the Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “Of course, to some extent, they can only be published if it is mutually agreed, this is diplomatic practice. Overall, diplomatic practice does not include such publications. However, should there be any signals from Americans, we will discuss them”. The remarks came a day after one of Trump’s most vocal congressional critics, House Intelligence Chair Representative Adam Schiff of California, informed NBC News that Democrats were looking into obtaining copies of Trump’s conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has been alleged of looking the Putin administration’s help to secure his 2016 victory, but no evidence of collusion has emerged and dozens have been jailed as part of a comprehensive investigation.

Adam Schiff informed the news outlet, “I think the paramount need here is to protect the national security of the United States and see whether in the conversations with other world leaders—and in particular with Putin that the president was also undermining our security in a way that he thought would personally benefit his campaign”. He added, “If those conversations with Putin or with other world leaders are sequestered in that same electronic file that is meant for covert action, not meant for this, if there’s an effort to hide those and cover those up, yes we’re determined to find out”. He was referencing the highly-restricted “codeword” server that Trump and Zelensky’s call was stored on. Trump has repeatedly denied having solicited undue foreign interference, either from Ukraine or Russia.