Donald Trump’s proposed Washington meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been delayed until 2019.

Trump beholden to Putin? Summit does nothing to dispel impression Read more

The national security adviser, John Bolton, in a statement, cited special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as the reason for the delay.

Bolton said: “The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.”

While the statement signaled optimism that the Mueller investigation would be completed by the end of this year, no timetable has been given for when it will be wrapped up and it could very well stretch into 2019.

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The White House said last week that Trump had directed Bolton to invite Putin to Washington for a meeting in the fall. This came amid the backlash over Trump’s performance at a news conference with Putin following their Helsinki summit, and many members of Congress had objected to them meeting again in the fall.

The decision came days after the White House rejected a Putin-backed effort to hold a referendum in eastern Ukraine on the region’s future. The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said on Wednesday, before the announcement, that the US would never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea and demanded that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be restored.

Other signs had already emerged raising doubts about the second Trump-Putin summit. On Tuesday, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, threw cold water on the prospect of Putin accepting Trump’s invitation to visit the White House.

Ushakov told journalists in Moscow that no preparations were under way for a meeting in Washington and there were “other options that our leaders could consider”, such as the late November meeting of the Group of 20 in Argentina or another international event that both would attend.

Trump has long been seeking to bring Putin to Washington for a meeting. The president met Putin on the sidelines of two international summits last year – first in Germany, then Vietnam – and both times he invited his Russian counterpart to the White House, according to three current and former administration officials. He reiterated the invitation on a call with Putin in the spring.

Congressional Republican leaders had long been skeptical of a meeting between Trump and Putin. Both the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, insisted that Putin would not be invited to Capitol Hill if he came to Washington. Ryan said on Tuesday that an invitation to address Congress was “something we reserve for our allies”. McConnell told reporters: “I can only speak for the Congress but the Speaker and I made it clear that Putin will not be welcome up here at the Capitol.”

Democrats used far stronger language. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, said when the meeting was announced that “the notion that President Trump would invite a tyrant to Washington is beyond belief.”

Pompeo also said on Wednesday that he had personally warned Russian officials to abstain from interference in American elections and will work with Congress on new sanctions against Moscow.

“In Helsinki, we sought to explore whether Russia was interested in improving the relationship, but made clear that the ball is in Russia’s court,” Pompeo told the Senate foreign relations committee, referring to Donald Trump’s recent summit with Putin.

“We defended America’s fundamental strategic interests in Syria and Ukraine, and I personally made clear to the Russians that there will be severe consequences for interference in our democratic processes,” he said, also committing to work with Congress on a new Russia sanctions bill.