'This needs to be noticed': Former GOP strategist flags alarming Trump debate comment

A former Republican political strategist Wednesday urged an investigation into a less-reported remark former President Donald Trump made during a tumultuous debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trygve Olson, a senior adviser for the never-Trump conservative group Lincoln Project, raised concerns after Trump told Americans Tuesday night that he'd seen a controversial figure since leaving the White House: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"This needs to be noticed in the post-debate coverage," Olson wrote. "Reporters must ask, 'When and where did this happen, particularly given the classified documents case?'"

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Trump made this claim while fielding questions about his oft repeated claim that he could solve the Russia-Ukraine war and which side he'd prefer to be the victor.

"I saw Putin after I left, unfortunately left, because our country has gone to hell," Trump said. "I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other."

While others have raised concerns that Trump violated the Logan Act — a federal law that bans private citizens from engaging in unauthorized foreign diplomacy — Olson contextualized the comment in relationship to the former president's recently dismissed Espionage Act violations case.

Special counsel Jack Smith in 2023 accused Trump of hoarding classified information in his Florida social club Mar-a-Lago, where federal investigators found confidential information haphazardly stored in a ballroom, bathroom and shower, among other places.

Florida Federal Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July on the grounds that the special counsel's appointment to the case by the Attorney General had been improper in a ruling against which Smith has since filed an appeal.

That same month, Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the Florida social club.

At the time, John Bolton, onetime adviser to the former president, told CNN's Jim Acosta he feared Orbán was a middle man.

"Is it possible that Trump is communicating to Putin through Orbán?" asked Acosta.

"It's possible...Trump is communicating with him a lot of different ways," Bolton replied. "He thinks if he has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin then US/Russia relations are fine."