Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Austria’s chancellor to organize a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Vienna this summer and the White House is pondering the offer, a senior European official said.

Mr. Putin made the request during an official visit in the Austrian capital on Tuesday, the official said. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz accepted the request and pledged to approach Mr. Trump, the person said.</s>Donald Trump has dealt another blow to G7 unity after calling for Russia to be readmitted to the group - a call rejected by Theresa May.

The Prime Minister said Vladimir Putin’s Russia - thrown out of the group of leading industrialised nations in 2014 - should not be readmitted until it could demonstrate a change of course.

Mr Trump was already at odds with the rest of the group - the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan - over the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium.

His comments on Russia - backed by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte - added further to the tensions at the summit in La Malbaie in Canada.

Mr Trump said: “Russia should be in the meeting, should be a part of it.”

But Mrs May told the BBC: “I have always said we should engage with Russia but my phrase is ‘engage but beware’.

“We should remind ourselves why the G8 became the G7, it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

“We have seen malign activity from Russia in a whole variety of ways, of course including on the streets of Salisbury in the UK.

“So we need to say, I think, before any such conversations can take place Russia needs to change its approach.”

The Prime Minister has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to build an alliance against Russia after the Salisbury nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

At the G7 summit Mrs May was holding formal face-to-face talks with all of the other leaders - except Mr Trump.

The US president is expected to depart the two-day summit early tomorrow, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Asked if Mrs May believed she had been snubbed, a Downing Street spokeswoman replied: “No.”

But the Prime Minister twice refused to say whether she had requested a formal bilateral meeting with Mr Trump.

She told Sky News: “I talk with President Trump regularly, I talk on the telephone, I spoke to him earlier at the beginning of this week and I’ll be talking to him around this G7.

“What is important is that the UK and the United States actually come together in a whole variety of ways to talk about the issues that matter to us both.

The US leader fired off a series of messages on Twitter hitting out at his counterparts before the summit even opened.

He said the summit was an opportunity for “straightening out unfair trade deals” with the rest of the G7 - adding “if it doesn’t happen, we come out even better”.

Mr Macron - who has cultivated a close relationship with Mr Trump over recent months - stressed that the US was isolated.</s>KRASNOGORSK, Russia (AP) Ahead of the World Cup, Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov is reminiscing about his time with Donald Trump.

Agalarov was at Saturday’s opening of a World Cup broadcast center at his Crocus exhibition venue near Moscow, where Trump staged the Miss Universe beauty contest in 2013.

”I just want to remind you that before this there was a significant event at Crocus,” Agalarov said. ”There was Miss Universe under the management of Mr. Trump, who is now the president of the United States of America.”

Speaking alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Agalarov joked ”I reckon that Mr. President (Infantino) also has the potential to be president of some country.”

Agalarov’s ties to Trump have come under scrutiny in the U.S. amid investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Agalarov is a construction baron often likened to a Russian Trump. His son Emin is a famous pop singer who featured Trump in one of his videos, made around the time of the Miss Universe pageant.

After the contest was over, Trump tweeted to Aras Agalarov that ”TRUMP-TOWER MOSCOW is next.” No tower has been built.

Emails published in December 2017 by Donald Trump Jr. describe how an associate of Emin Agalarov, the British music publicist Rob Goldstone, wrote to Trump Jr. in 2016 offering material which would supposedly ”incriminate” 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Neither Agalarov is under United States sanctions which have been imposed on some leading Russian officials and business figures in recent years over the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and other matters.

The older Agalarov was included on a January list made by the U.S. Treasury of ”oligarchs” who could be potential targets for future sanctions. That list was simply based on a Forbes magazine list of billionaires, rather than any deeper political analysis.</s>European members of the G7 agreed that conditions were not ripe for Russia to be readmitted into the group of leading industrialized nations, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday.

"We are in agreement that a return of Russia to the G7 cannot happen unless substantial progress is made in terms of the problems with Ukraine," Merkel said on the sidelines of the two-day G7 summit in Canada after meeting with the leaders of France, Italy and Britain.

Read more: Donald Trump's trade moves set tense tone for G7 summit

The European stance came in response to a surprise suggestion from US President Donald Trump earlier on Friday that Russia — which was expelled in 2014 from what was called the G8 after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine — should be reinstated into the club. "They threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table," he said.

The G7 meeting is taking place at a time of heightened tension between the United States and its allies over the Trump administration's decision last week to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, the European Union and Mexico. The tariff decision prompted other nations to retaliate.

The Trump administration's tariff decision added to an already widening chasm between the US and its allies over trade, climate and the Iran nuclear deal.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with leaders from G7 nations the United States, Canada and France

Earlier Friday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung that nothing US President Donald Trump is doing will "make the world better, safer or more peaceful."

"We cannot look away," said Maas. "He knows that what he is doing is of direct detriment to Europe."

Donald Tusk, who as president of the European Council is at the summit representing the EU, said the Trump administration and the rest of the group has clear differences on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

Tusk warned that "the rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the US."

Merkel said that it was unclear if the G7 summit would end with a joint statement, potentially making it the first time they would fail to agree on a communique.

French President Emmanuel Macron said ahead of the summit that US allies would not be intimidated, signalling that the other six countries at the G7 meeting would be willing to sign a final declaration without Trump.

"The American President may not mind being isolated," Macron wrote on Twitter, "but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be."

Trump was the last leader to arrive at the summit and is expected to be the first to leave on Saturday, as he prepares for a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12.

Trump has repeatedly railed against EU countries and Canada over trade under his "America First" slogan.

"All of these countries have been taking advantage of the United States on trade," he said before flying to Canada from Washington. "We have massive trade deficits with almost every country. We will straighten that out."

The two-day G7 summit in La Malbaie, Canada, will continue on Saturday. Issues such as gender equality and climate change will be major topics of discussion, particularly in light of the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

DW editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.</s>LA MALBAIE, Que. — Donald Trump’s pitch to bring Russia back into the G7 has landed with a thud at the summit hosted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Quebec.

Trump prefaced his arrival in Canada on Friday with a sharp jab at the G7 by calling for Russia’s reinstatement — creating a chasm with his allies on one of their key security concerns.

Prior to boarding Air Force One, the U.S. president took to Twitter to deride Canada and Europe on a familiar topic: what he sees as their unfair trade practices.

But it was Trump’s pre-departure remarks on Russia that moved him squarely offside with most of his fellow G7 leaders, including Trudeau, on one of their most serious, shared international security concerns.

“Why are we having a meeting without Russia in the meeting?” Trump said at the White House just before departing.

“They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”

In 2014, the then-G8 kicked Russia out of the club of powerful countries. Canada and its Western allies oppose the adventurism of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Kremlin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and for the ongoing fight between Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east.

Canada, for one, is not receptive to the idea of bringing Russia back in.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland cited reasons why the G7 yanked Russia’s invitation to the club, including its invasion of Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the recent chemical weapon attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.

Freeland said Russia has made it clear with actions like these that it has no interest in following the rules of Western democracies, like those in the G7.

“Canada’s position is absolutely clear that there are no grounds whatsoever for bringing Russia, with its current behaviour, back into the G7,” Freeland told reporters at the summit site in La Malbaie, Que.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also expressed her opposition.

“We’ve always been clear that we should engage with Russia, but the phrase I’ve used is ‘engage but beware’,” May told Sky News.

“And let’s remember why the G8 became the G7 — it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea, and before any conversations of this sort can happen, we have to ensure that Russia is actually mending its ways and taking a different route.”

Trump’s idea, however, did attract some G7 support Friday. Italy’s new populist prime minister sowed further uncertainty by tweeting his support for Trump’s position on Russia.

For their part, the Russians didn’t appear interested in Trump’s offer.

The Russian news agency Sputnik reported Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov’s response to Trump’s tweet: “Russia is focused on other formats, apart from the G7.”

But Trump’s musings on Russia throw into question a declaration that the G7 is considering in Charlevoix that would condemn meddling in western elections — a statement that would have been aimed squarely at Russia.

For the past week, it was an open question in Ottawa whether Trump would actually show up, after he imposed heavy steel and aluminum tariffs against the other G7 members. The G7 leaders were planning to press him to lift those duties in their opening sessions Friday.

Those plans, as well as Trudeau’s carefully crafted agenda — months in making —were thrown into disarray even before Trump stepped off his plane in Bagotville, Que., making his debut on Canadian soil.

After arriving at the summit site, Trump greeted Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on the hotel’s sweeping lawn, which overlooks the mighty St. Lawrence River.

The leaders shook hands, chatted a little bit, posed for photos and then walked off — just the two of them — along a path that led around the side of the hotel.

The men showed no obvious signs of hard feelings on Friday, even though they had exchanged tough words publicly over their differences on trade issues.

In railing against Canadian trade policies, Trump accused Trudeau of being “indignant” on Twitter. Trudeau has called Trump’s tariffs “insulting.”

On Trump’s Russia remark earlier Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fuelled the disharmony amongst the G7 by tweeting his support for the U.S. president’s position.

“I agree with the President @realDonaldTrump: Russia should go back into the G-8. In the interest of all.”

Conte, who heads a right-wing populist party, was making his international debut after he was appointed last week as a compromise candidate for prime minister to break a political deadlock since Italy’s March national election.

European Council President Donald Tusk raised questions about Conte’s commitment to that idea. He said he has met Conte and considers his position on Russia to be completely in-line with the common European line, which considers Russia’s breach of its western border to be an illegal act.

Tusk expressed broader concern about Trump’s opposition to the international rules-based order, because it ”is being challenged, quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.”

The European Union is also a full member of the G7, so Tusk is part of the leaders’ meetings with Trump, where they are trying to persuade the president to stop attacking multilateralism.

“We will not stop trying to convince our American friends and President Trump that undermining this order makes no sense at all because it would only play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist,” said Tusk.

Despite the current G7 turmoil, Tusk said more unites the group than divides it.

“It is far too early for our adversaries and enemies to celebrate.”

Trudeau is hosting the world’s most powerful countries at the two-day summit in La Malbaie, in Quebec’s Charlevoix region, Trump is not expected to stay until the end.

He is set to depart before Saturday’s final session on climate change and fly to Singapore for a much-anticipated summit with the leader of North Korea.</s>LA MALBAIE, Canada - President Donald Trump drove the wedge splitting Washington from its Western allies even deeper on Friday with a shock call for Russia to be readmitted to the G7 club of nations.

As the leaders of the top industrialized democracies began meeting ahead of the G7 summit in Quebec, European leaders warned that Trump's stance threatens the Western-led world order. Already angered by Trump's positions on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, the other G7 allies now face a rift in the united western front against Russian aggression.

Before jumping on Air Force One to fly to Canada, which is hosting the summit in La Malbaie north of Quebec City, Trump called for a return to the body's pre-2014 "G8" formula. "They threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table," the US leader said before boarding the presidential jet.

Moscow was expelled from the rich nations club, which sees itself as a guarantor of rules-based order and the global economy, over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. While Italy's new premier Giuseppe Conte, the head of a populist coalition, sided with Trump, many other European leaders were horrified and warned against the idea.

"It is evident that the American president and the rest of the group continue to disagree on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal," EU president Donald Tusk admitted.

Tusk warned that "the rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the US." And he said Trump's determination to bait his allies over trade and diplomatic engagements "would only play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist."

Trump was the last G7 leader to arrive and on Saturday, he will probably be the first to leave, in a hurry to move on to his nuclear summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Trade battle lines were drawn even before he arrived in a series of dueling tweets and statements between Trump and his onetime friend French President Emmanuel Macron.

With unmistakable symbolism, the fractious Western democracies were meeting on the same day that China's President Xi Jinping welcomed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to Beijing.

Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the G7 nations are split over trade, climate and multilateral engagements such as the Iran nuclear deal.

And at the same time, the US president seems more at home with autocrats than with Washington's traditional allies.

The "America First" president's broadside before leaving Washington reinforced predictions that the Quebec G7 would be the first such summit to end without an agreed joint statement. "All of these countries have been taking advantage of the United States on trade," he said before flying out. "We have massive trade deficits with almost every country. We will straighten that out. And I'll tell you what, it's what I do. "It won't even be hard and in the end, we'll all get along."

Host Canada and its European allies are striving to put together a united front to oppose Trump's tariffs of aluminum, steel, cars and other exports, but the markets are rattled. European and Asian stocks indices were down across the board Friday - despite a week of gains in the wake of robust US jobs data and easing political headwinds in Italy and Spain. In New York, the Dow dipped in early trade. Macron and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who also sought friendship with Trump, made it clear they would prefer no consensus to a climbdown on trade. "The American president may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a six country agreement if need be," Macron said in a tweet. Trudeau told reporters the US national security justification for the tariffs on steel and aluminum was "laughable."

Macron was to meet with Britain's Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Conte ahead of their talks with Trump.

On Friday, the bilateral meetings precede roundtable discussions before they tuck into a dinner of lobster, asparagus and maple leaves nestled on a brioche at the end of the first day of talks.

The summit is being held at a luxury resort more than two hours' drive from the provincial capital, where more than 400 protesters faced off late Thursday against police.

Previous G7 summits have seen large-scale anti-globalization protests, but Trump was a main target of the demonstration as masked anarchists set fire to US flags and those of other G7 nations.</s>LA MALBAIE, Quebec (AP) — President Donald Trump charged into the Group of Seven summit at odds with key allies over U.S. tariffs, then set out to defuse tension with friendly banter and offered vague claims of progress in trade talks. But details were scant and clear differences remained at the summit's midpoint.

After days of verbal sparring over new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Trump joined the leaders of major industrialized nations in an idyllic Canadian resort town. On his way to the annual gathering, Trump laid out his fundamental grievance, saying that other countries "have been taking advantage of the United States on trade."

He injected additional controversy by suggesting that the G-7 offer a seat at the table to Russia, which was ousted from the group after it annexed Crimea.

On Saturday, Trump attended a breakfast focused on gender equality, arriving after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opened the session. He planned to leave Canada several hours early, heading to Singapore for his summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, missing G-7 sessions on climate change, clean energy and ocean protection.

Trump's recent moves, building on 18 months of nationalist policy-making, leave him out of step with the globally-minded organization and have prompted speculation that the group could fracture into something more like the "G-6 plus one."

But in meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump stressed his friendships with the allies while continuing to insist he wanted to see changes on trade.

Trump bantered easily with Trudeau, joking that the neighboring leader had "agreed to cut all tariffs and all trade barriers." And he emphasized a "good relationship" with Macron, saying they sometimes have a "little test" on trade, but predicting a positive outcome.

Still, the fundamental differences remained clear. Trump again railed against trade deficits with other countries and repeated that he may pursue separate trade deals with Canada and Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, while Canada would prefer to renegotiate the three-way deal

Asked if Trudeau was upset that Trump would be leaving the summit in Canada early on Saturday, Trump joked, "He's happy."

Macron said he and Trump held "open and direct" discussions, adding that he thought there was a way to get a "win-win" outcome on trade, though details remained unclear.

Both sides suggested some progress in NAFTA talks. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said they were "close to a deal," but added that there was also discussion of shifting to a bilateral deal. A Canadian official said the leaders discussed accelerating the pace of the talks.

Trump spent Friday participating in the rituals of the G-7, including the formal greeting by host Trudeau, a group photo in front of the sparkling St. Lawrence River and a working lunch of Arctic char and buckwheat salad.

Other members of the Group of Seven are Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Britain. The European Union also attends.

Trump's relations with the others have hit such a low point that a key question was whether the seven countries can agree on a joint statement of priorities at the conclusion of the meeting. Macron said Thursday on Twitter, "The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be."

Trump said Friday he thinks the group will produce a joint statement.

Before arriving at the Quebec summit, Trump injected fresh drama by asking why Russia wasn't included in the group.

"They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table," he said.

Russia was ousted from the elite group in 2014 as punishment for President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. In the U.S., special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election in his favor.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the issue "hasn't been raised around the G-7 table," though she said there have been "some direct conversations in bilateral meetings." She added "there are no grounds whatsoever for bringing Russia with its current behavior back into the G-7."

In Paris, Macron's office said such a move wouldn't make sense and pointed out that the latest country to impose economic sanctions on Russia was the U.S. Italy's new premier, Giuseppe Conte, tweeted that he agreed with Trump, saying: "Russia should go back into the G-8. In the interest of all."

Russia seemed unconcerned. State news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying, "We are putting the emphasis on other formats."

Over the course of his presidency, Trump has inflamed allies with his isolationist policies, including withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and the international Iran-nuclear agreement.

"The rules-based international order is being challenged, not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor: the United States," said European Council President Donald Tusk.

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas, Jill Colvin and Darlene Superville in Washington, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.</s>Donald Trump has dealt another blow to G7 unity after calling for Russia to be readmitted to the group – a call rejected by Theresa May.

The British Prime Minister said Vladimir Putin’s Russia – thrown out of the group of leading industrialised nations in 2014 – should not be readmitted until it could demonstrate a change of course.

Mr Trump was already at odds with the rest of the group – the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – over the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminium.

His comments on Russia – backed by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte – added further to the tensions at the summit in La Malbaie in Canada.

Mr Trump said: “Russia should be in the meeting, should be a part of it.”

But Mrs May told the BBC: “I have always said we should engage with Russia but my phrase is ‘engage but beware’.

“We should remind ourselves why the G8 became the G7, it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

“We have seen malign activity from Russia in a whole variety of ways, of course including on the streets of Salisbury in the UK.

“So we need to say, I think, before any such conversations can take place Russia needs to change its approach.”

The British Prime Minister has been at the forefront of diplomatic efforts to build an alliance against Russia after the Salisbury nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

At the G7 summit Mrs May was holding formal face-to-face talks with all of the other leaders – except Mr Trump.

Theresa May meets Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at the G7 summit (David Hughes/PA)

The US president is expected to depart the two-day summit early on Saturday, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Asked if Mrs May believed she had been snubbed, a Downing Street spokeswoman replied: “No.”

But the Prime Minister twice refused to say whether she had requested a formal bilateral meeting with Mr Trump.

She told Sky News: “I talk with President Trump regularly, I talk on the telephone, I spoke to him earlier at the beginning of this week and I’ll be talking to him around this G7.

“What is important is that the UK and the United States actually come together in a whole variety of ways to talk about the issues that matter to us both.

“In the future we’ll be talking about future trade relations, but of course the security relationship that underpins the UK’s long-standing special relationship with the United States is of particular importance to us.”

Asked if Mr Trump was a good friend to the UK, Mrs May told Channel 4: “The United States and the United Kingdom are good friends. President Trump and I work together.

“Yes, sometimes we disagree on issues but when we disagree because of the nature of our relationship we’re able to have that frank and open discussion.”

The US leader fired off a series of messages on Twitter hitting out at his counterparts before the summit even opened.

He said the summit was an opportunity for “straightening out unfair trade deals” with the rest of the G7 – adding “if it doesn’t happen, we come out even better”.

Mrs May hopes to use the summit to avert a wider trade war, insisting she wants a “proportionate” response from the European Union to the “unjustified” US tariffs.

But before the summit had even begun Mr Trump was engaged in an extraordinary public spat with Canada’s Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Mr Macron – who has cultivated a close relationship with Mr Trump over recent months – stressed that the US was isolated.

Mr Trump posted a series of messages on his favourite social media platform, accusing the EU and Canada of imposing “massive trade tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers” against the US.

The US has refused to exempt its allies from the 25% tariff on steel imports and the 10% duty on aluminium.

The European Commission has confirmed it intends to hit back with retaliatory tariffs from July on US imports ranging from jeans to bourbon whiskey.

The EU members of the G7 had a special meeting in the margins of the summit to discuss tariffs and the Iran nuclear deal, which Mr Trump also opposes.</s>If your contention is that President Donald Trump has the propensity to sound like a bully and an authoritarian, I’m with you. If you’re arguing that Trump’s rhetoric is sometimes coarse and unpresidential, I can’t disagree. I’m often turned off by the aesthetic and tonal quality of his presidency. And, yes, Trump has an unhealthy tendency to push theories that exaggerate and embellish small truths to galvanize his fans for political gain. Those are all legitimate political concerns.

Yet the ubiquitous claim that Trump acts in a way that uniquely undermines the rule of law is, to this point, simply untrue.

At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that “elites” often seem more concerned about the “mellifluous” tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power. “Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential,’” he writes. “Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens.”

But while former President Barack Obama’s agreeable tone had plenty to do with his lack of media scrutiny, many largely justified, and even cheered, his abuses because they furthered progressive causes. Not only did liberals often ignore the rule of law when it was ideologically convenient for them; they now want the new president to play by a set of rules that doesn’t even exist.

Partisans tend to conflate their own policy preferences with the rule of law, or democracy or patriotism. But the pervasive claim that the Trump administration has uniquely undermined the law, a claim that dominates coverage, typically amounts to concerns regarding how he comports himself.

TRENDING: Tucker Carlson Corners CA Congressman on Whether FBI Spied on Trump

For example, entering into international treaties without the Senate or creating fiscal subsidizes without Congress are the types of things that corrode the rule of law. Firing (or threatening to fire) your subordinates at the Justice Department, on the other hand, is well within the purview of presidential powers.

Trump, as far as I know, hasn’t shut down a single investigation into himself or anyone in his administration or campaign, despite evidence that a special counsel’s creation was based on politically motivated information.

Though he may be wrong, it’s not an attack on the rule of law for the president to claim privilege. Nor is a president undermining the rule of law if he pushes back against an investigation into Russian collusion.

Now, Trump might not have a wingman running the Justice Department, but nothing in the Constitution stipulates that he has to prostrate himself in front of prosecutors, much less prosecutors who have veered far from their initial charge.

The intelligence community is not sacred. Americans have no patriotic duty to respect former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or former CIA Director John Brennan. The president is free to accuse them of partisanship. Doing so is not an attack on the rule of law any more than the reverse.

Considering the amount of politically motivated leaking and false accusations that have been made over the past year, it seems absurd to expect anything different. The Clintons pushed back against Ken Starr, and Trump pushes back against Robert Mueller. Democrats shouldn’t have boxed themselves in by convincing their constituents that some incontrovertible proof of illicit or seditious behavior was just waiting to be uncovered.

Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when offering presidential commutations and pardons (nor would he even, perhaps, if he were to pardon himself).

If Americans are displeased, they have recourse. Unlike presidents who pardon, say, personal campaign financers or terrorists near the end of their terms to avoid fallout, nothing stops today’s voters from electing representatives to impeach and remove Trump if they desire. That is the mechanism in place to stop the president.

Nor does Trump undermine the rule of law when he rolls back the previous administration’s unilateral abuses on immigration and bogus treaties. In many ways, Trump has strengthened the checks and balances that were broken by the rhetorically soothing President Obama. Mock it if you like, “but Gorsuch” will likely do more to curb the state’s overreach than any justice the left would ever put on any bench.

RELATED: Trump Needs Whole Picture Before Deciding on Blagojevich

Now, any defense of the Trump administration will, of course, meet charges of sycophancy and “anti-anti-Trumpism.” But none of this is to argue that the Trump administration is a paragon of lawfulness. It’s far from it. So stop exaggerating. The astoundingly terrible and hypocritical arguments of the president’s detractors often make it imperative to defend neutral principles and process.

You don’t get to fabricate a new Constitution every time there’s a president you dislike. American patriotism isn’t predicated on pretending that Russia can flip our election with some Facebook ads, but it is certainly grounded in the idea that we all hold consistent constitutional principles.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of the forthcoming “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History with the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.”

A version of this Op-Ed previously appeared on The Daily Signal website under the headline “You Don’t Get to Rewrite the Constitution Because You Dislike Donald Trump.”

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.

Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.</s>Charlevoix, June 8 - Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said Friday that he wants to see Russia back in the group of the world's most industrialised countries. "I agree with (United States) President (Donald) Trump: Russia should return to the G8," Conte tweeted from the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Canada. "It's in everyone's interests". Conte said Italy would "weigh stances" on possibly vetoing sanctions on Russia at the G7 in Canada. "We will weigh the positions, we still have to start the G7," he replied to a question on whether Italy would veto Russia sanctions. "We are open to dialogue, but that does not mean transforming a defined process, linked to the implementation of the Minsk accords", he said. "We are comfortably placed in NATO: Italy's international position is absolutely not in question but we are certainly in favour of dialogue and we are very attentive that sanctions should not impact on Russian civil society". Conte voiced "total dissatisfaction" on the reform of the Dublin rule on migrants. Speaking at the G7 in Canada, Conte said "there is total dissatisfaction on Italy's part on the proposals currently being discussed, Italy cannot be left on its own in managing migratory flows". Speaking after meeting European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk, Conte said "we want a stronger Europe but also one with more solidarity". Juncker said he had a "good" bilateral meeting with Conte and Italy was "crucial" for the EU. "We didn't speak about Russia in particular" but Italy "has a fundamental role in Europe," and Italy "needs Europe and Europe is not complete without Italy," he said. Juncker was answering a question about Italy's bid to get sanctions on Russia lifted. "I had good talks with Conte and I'll see him again before the summit, we'll talk about immigration and the EU budget", Juncker said. Tusk said in answering a question on Conte's support for the Trump stance that European Union countries will have the same line on Russia, "maybe not in the details but in the general line,". "There are no disagreements between Italy and Europe," he said, adding that he had had "good, friendly" bilateral talks with Conte. The Group of Seven format must remain unchanged for now, Juncker and Tusk agreed at the summit. Speaking after US President Donald Trump said he favoured Russia's return to a G8, receiving Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte's endorsement, Juncker said "we must safeguard EU principles, among which, European states, like Russia, must respect international rules". Juncker said "of course, we must reopen dialogue with Russia, but in other ways".
U.S. President Donald Trump calls for Russia, which was suspended from the group after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, to be reinstated in the group; a call supported by the Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte, and rejected by most other G7 leaders.