Trump asked NSA John Bolton to invite Vladimir Putin to Washington in the fall

BREAKING: White House: Trump asked national security adviser to invite Putin to Washington for fall meeting, discussions underway.

In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.

Perhaps as an election monitorhttps://twitter.com/AP/status/1020036126382460928 …

The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear........

....proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more. There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems...but they can ALL be solved!

Mitchell just broke the news on stage to Coats that, per WH, Putin is coming to Washington. “Say that again?” Coats asked. Audience erupts in laughter. He took a breath. “Ok. That’s gonna be special.”

Per WH statement, the invitation to Putin came from John Bolton. He would be the one to inform other agencies about this. He obviously didn’t tell the Director of National Intelligence.

Dan Coats says in Aspen he felt "I needed to correct the record" after Trump's comments alongside Putin. "I wish he made a different statement," Coats says. "It's undeniable that the Russians are taking a lead on this," pushing back on Trump saying it "could" be others

Without mentioning Trump by name, Coats says he reassures allies about their relationship based on the shared goals of keeping their respective countries safe. He says, "We put the news of the day on the shelf."

Asked about all the attacks on the intelligence community, Coats won't say if he's ever considered resigning. Most days, he says, he views it as a "reward giving back to my country." But he also siad, "There are other days, [I say], what am I doing?"

Q: Did you know that Kislyak and Lavorv were going into Oval Office that day? Coats: "I did not.:" Q: What was your reaction afterwards? Coats: "Probably not the best thing to do. But, no I was not aware of that. I’m not aware of anything like that since"

Holy moly. Dan Coats -- the intelligence chief -- said he didn't know beforehand that Lavrov and Kislyak were going to meet with Trump in the Oval Office last spring.

The @mitchellreports interview with Dan Coats is extraordinary. To recap: The president's hand-picked Intel Chief said it wasn't wise for Trump to meet one-on-one with Putin in Helsinki and it was a bad idea to invite the Russian ambassador to the Oval Office.

This is a really revealing interview of DNI Dan Coats by @mitchellreports. He is quite candid and definitely not the typical Trump surrogate delivering the typical Trump talking points.

Putin: "Let's see how things develop, given that certain forces in America are trying belittle, disavow the results of the Helsinki meeting."

The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war. They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin. We are doing MUCH better than any other country!

Before @realDonaldTrump sits down for second time with Vladimir Putin, is it too much to ask that White House disclose what agreements were reached in Helsinki: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/07/19/what-helsinki-agreements-this-is-not-normal/ …https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1019936133147516929 …

President Trump has had intelligence on Russian meddling since two weeks before his inauguration, @nytimes reports.https://twitter.com/i/moments/1019988602888081408 …

"I would, because he's in charge of the country." Trump told @CBSNews he "would" hold Putin responsible for election interference and warned the leader to end it.https://twitter.com/i/moments/1019701869566832642 …