News broke late last night that Trump and Vladimir Putin held a private, off the record meeting at the G20 summit earlier this month.
Not to be confused with the formal meeting between the two, Cobra Commander and Serpentor met privately a second time that was previously undisclosed.
The second conversation between Trump and Putin took place during a dinner for the Group of 20 heads of state and their spouses in Hamburg, said Ian Bremmer, the president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, who was first to report the meeting in a note to clients. [...]
Bremmer said Trump got up from his seat halfway through dinner and spent about an hour talking "privately and animatedly" with Putin, "joined only by Putin's own translator."
For Trump to hold a secret meeting with no one from his staff or cabinet present would be concerning even if he were conversing with a western European ally, but Trump held a secret meeting with Putin; the man who helped him get elected.
We have no record of what the two of them discussed, but the Russians do. Putin was accompanied by a translator that Trump relied on. They may even have an audio recording of the conservation for all we know.
Even if you don't believe they discussed anything controversial, Trump has no way to prove that they didn't. The Russians could accuse him of virtually anything and he would have no way to refute it. That's leverage.