President Trump tweeted Sunday morning that he and Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the idea of forming a cyber security alliance to fight election hacking.
Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017
Trump had his first face-to-face meeting with Putin at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, where the two men discussed North Korea, Syria, and other global issues.
It was also reported that Trump pressed Putin multiple times on accusations that he directed cyber attacks against the U.S., but there are varying accounts of how Trump responded to Putin’s repeated denials.
Now, Trump says he and Putin also discussed the idea of forming a cyber security unit “so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.”
The proposed unit comes after four US intelligence agencies — the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Office of DNI — have expressed “high confidence” that Russia was responsible for cyber attacks on the U.S. during the 2016 election.
During his speech in Warsaw, Poland, prior to the G20, Trump said he believed Russia was responsible for election meddling but that “other countries” may have been involved as well.