WASHINGTON _ Amid the swirling scandals involving Russia and the Trump administration, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made one thing clear: He doesn't know if Russia bugged the Oval Office.
"I would have no way to know that," Tillerson said Wednesday.
His response to a reporter's question came at the end of a brief appearance with Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra at the State Department, and after Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to provide U.S. lawmakers with "a record" of the Trump's Oval Office meeting with Russian officials.
At issue is whether Trump disclosed highly classified intelligence on Islamic State threats to civil aviation during a May 10 meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.
The White House has insisted Trump's comments were "wholly appropriate." In a tweet, Trump said he had the authority to reveal information to the Russians in his efforts to develop greater cooperation with Moscow on counterterrorism issues.
No members of the American news media were allowed in the meeting. Official U.S. and Russian government photographers were there, and Russia's Tass news service quickly posted pictures online, embarrassing the White House.
Kislyak has been at the center of U.S. investigations into whether members of the Trump election campaign had improper contact with Russian officials during the campaign last year.
On Wednesday, Putin attempted to come to Trump's aid.
Speaking at a news conference in Sochi, Russia, Putin denied that Trump had shared classified information with the Russian envoys and said he was ready to give Congress "a record of the conversation" in the Oval Office.
Putin did not specify if he meant a clandestine recording, a transcript of one, or just the official notes of the meeting by the Russian envoys or their aides.
The Russian word for "record" can refer to an audio recording, but the Interfax news agency quoted a Kremlin aide, Yuri V. Ushakov, as telling reporters that Moscow had in its possession a written record of the conversation, not a recording.
