Republican US Senator Rand Paul said on Wednesday he delivered a letter from President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing cooperation, weeks after Trump was widely condemned for not standing up to Putin at their Helsinki summit.
Trump has pushed for easing tensions between the former Cold War foes, exacerbated by US intelligence findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, trying to tilt the outcome to Trump.
Last week, Trump’s national security team said Russia is behind “pervasive” attempts to interfere in the November midterm elections, in a rejection of denials of meddling that Putin made directly to Trump. Trump sparked outrage by accepting Putin’s word over that of his intelligence agencies at a Helsinki news conference.
Paul, one of the few Republicans to defend Trump’s July 16 performance in Helsinki, said he had traveled to the Russian capital to encourage diplomacy amid tense…