Trump told Putin ‘I’m a big fan of yours’ and asked him to be the guest of honor at a Miss Universe pageant, in a series of fawning letters

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office along with a partial image of a 2013 letter uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst // US Senate Intelligence Committee (Overlaid)

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a series of letters on Tuesday as part of its report into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.

They include a letter in which Trump wrote to Putin congratulating him on being named Time magazine’s 2007 Person of the Year. “Congratulations on being named Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ — you definitely deserve it. As you have probably heard, I’m a big fan of yours!” Trump wrote.

A second letter dated from 2013 involves Trump trying to persuade Putin to attend the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, an event run and owned by Trump. The future president said the event would be a “great tribute to Moscow and Russia” and said his team had turned down “many competing countries in favor of Russia.”

The document was contained in the fifth and most likely final report, which runs for nearly 1,000 pages, into Russian interference in the election.

It concluded that contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 “represented a grave counterintelligence threat” and detailed communications between Trump staff members and Russian agents, including one Kremlin spy, according to the BBC.

Asked about the report on Tuesday, Trump replied that he “didn’t read it.”

Navy Vet

Article URL : https://www.businessinsider.com/revealed-donald-trump-letters-to-vladimir-putin-miss-universe-russia-2020-8