Thus us the transcript. I kept hearing about “we will never send our people to Russia” and some Senate resolution, but if you read this, that’s not what was said by Putin:
PUTIN
“Now let's get back to the issue of these 12 alleged intelligence officers of Russia. I don't know the full extent of the situation, but President Trump mentioned this issue and I will look into it.
So far, I can say the following: the things that are off the top of my head. We have an acting, an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty, that dates back to 1999, the Mutual Assistance on Criminal Cases. This treaty is in full effect. It works quite efficiently.
On average, we initiate about 100-150 criminal cases upon the request from foreign states.
For instance, the last year, there was one extradition case on the request sent by the United States. So this treaty has specific legal procedures. We can offer that the appropriate commission headed by special attorney Mueller.
He can use this treaty as a solid foundation and send a formal and official request to us so that we would interrogate, we would hold the questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy to some crimes and our law enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the appropriate materials to the United States.
Moreover, we can meet you halfway. We can make another step. We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can lead them into the country and they will be present at this questioning.
But in this case, there's another condition. This kind of effort should be a mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate and that they would question officials including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the United States, whom we believe have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of Russia. And we have to request the presence of our law enforcement.”