While former President Donald Trump allies gathered for the 50th annual right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) a few miles outside of Washington, DC this week, a group of ex-Trump allies and "Never Trump" conservatives also convened in the nation's capital for the Principles First Summit.
Principles First Summit's attendees included former deputy assistant to Trump, Fiona Hill, according to The Guardian.
The Guardian reports during the summit, the British-born ex-Trump staffer was asked about her time at the 2018 summit in Helsinki with Russian president Vladimir Putin, "when Trump caused huge controversy by meeting Putin alone then appearing deferential in public, saying he took the Russian president at his word that he did not interfere in the US election in 2016 – a conclusion not supported by US intelligence and law enforcement."
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Hill, the news outlet notes, "has previously said she was so appalled that she considered faking a sudden illness to stop the press conference." She jokingly told the Principles First crowd, "I also thought about pulling the fire alarm, but I didn’t know what Finnish was for 'fire alarm'."
She added, "more seriously," that the Putin press conference "was one of the most humiliating episodes of all time."
Hill said:
'Putin always looked to put one over Trump and, actually, every leader he ever meets. Even Xi Jinping of China. Putin thinks about what people’s vulnerabilities are, and how he can then try to manipulate the conversation to go in his direction.'
'The issue was really the press conference itself. We knew that it was going to be difficult. I’d actually recommended against a press conference. My word didn’t have much coinage in that environment but one of the reasons was because Trump admires Putin so much, he never wants to be humiliated. And it was all about a personal sense of humiliation.'
'The instance in which he was asked the question about whether he felt that the Russians interfered in the election, he wanted to push back very quickly against it. He wanted to diminish any kind of idea of that because if … he wanted to get the message across that nobody had interfered on his behalf.'
The Guardian reports the former Trump deputy assistant declared the former president "would have lost his mind completely" at the Helsinki summit if Putin "had simply admitted he did in fact interfere on Trump’s behalf in the US election two years before."
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Trump chose not "to believe that Russia tried to tip the scales to his benefit. And if Putin had actually said to him at some point, 'No, Donald, I did try to interfere in the election,' I think he would have lost his mind completely," Hill added.
"Because what would he have done about that? He’s trying to push back against this and the conclusion of course is that no, Russia didn’t do that at all."
The Guardian's full report is available at this link (subscription required).
