Why Didn’t Vladimir Putin Deny That He Had Compromising Information about President Trump?

Trump and Putin Shake Hands

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre press conference earlier today at the Helsinki summit. Even the normally sycophantic Fox News found fault with Mr. Trump’s performance, with Douglas E. Schoen writing, “President Trump’s unwillingness to stand up to Russia” about its misconduct “only serves to weaken the Western alliance and encourage further Russian incursions into the territory of sovereign nations now that Putin knows Trump will give him a pass.” Schoen also noted that Trump declined to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump instead repeated conspiracy theories about various Democrats. 

The most important thing, however is that President Putin had a chance to deny that he had compromising information about President Trump, and yet he didn't deny it.

Let’s take another look at the rhetoric of silence – what it means when someone is silent at times that call for speech. The most important event occurred when AP reporter Jonathan Lemire asked, “does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or on his family?” Putin dodged the question. Let’s look at his response. The first part of the response was:

“And now, to the compromising material. Yeah, I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Well, distinguished colleague, let me tell you this: when President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.”

This was a basic non-denial. It reminded me of the non-denials that the Nixon White House issued when accused of wrongdoing during the Watergate crisis. The fact that he didn’t know Trump personally does not mean that his intelligence agencies did not gather compromising information. As anyone who has even read spy novels should know, the Kremlin routinely gathers compromising information on distinguished foreign visitors.

Here is the second part of President Putin’s response:

“Well, let’s take St. Petersburg Economic Forum, for instance. There were over 500 American businessmen, high-ranking, high-level ones. I don’t even remember the last names of each and every one of them. Well, do you remember — do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them? Well, it’s difficult to imagine an utter nonsense of a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard these issues and don’t think about this any more again.”

Again, Putin denied nothing. He asked a question: “do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them?” He called the accusation “utter nonsense.” But he never answered even his own question. And he instructed the press to “just disregard these issues and don’t think about this any more again.” Those aren’t denials: a question, followed by a request, but no denial.

Now, does the Russian government have compromising information about Mr. Trump? Of course, I don’t know. I still have to wonder, however, why President Putin didn’t just say, “No, I don’t have such information.” Suppose, for example, that the police arrest somebody named Spike. The police ask Spike, “Did you steal the Volvo?" If Spike is innocent, Spike will say, “No, I didn’t.” If he is guilty, he might lie, but he might just dodge the question. So, . . . 

Silence can be literal, when somebody says nothing. In this case, President Putin said quite a bit, but he dodged the question. Why? This can only make people suspect that, in fact, President Putin has the goods on President Trump. Does he?

campaign speeches

 The rhetoric of silence can work in different ways. Here is my post about Emma González' literal use of silence. And here is a case of Trump being silent when he should have spoken. There's an entire literature about the rhetoric of silence; I developed some ways to think about this in my book From the Front Porch to the Front Page. 

Thanks to Time magazine for the transcript. Image from White House Flickr page.