Donald Trump was less prepared than Vladimir Putin for their first face-to-face meeting, allowing the Kremlin strongman to 'push what he wanted', Rex Tillerson has claimed.
The former Secretary of State - who was fired by Trump last year and later labeled 'dumb as a rock' by the President - told Congress that the two leaders were on an 'unequal footing' at the meeting in Germany in 2017.
Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tillerson said the meeting had spiraled from a brief talk into a two-hour session, leaving Trump exposed.
'We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,' a committee source told the Washington Post.
'There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.'
Trump has rejected the claims, saying he was 'perfectly prepared' and 'did very well' at the meeting with Putin, which took place on the sidelines of a G20 summit.
'Discrepancy in preparation': Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Germany in July 2017 - a meeting which Rex Tillerson says the Russian was better prepared for
The meeting in Hamburg was the first between the two leaders since Trump's election win in 2016 - a contest tainted by Russian meddling.
Trump said afterwards that he had 'strongly pressed' the Moscow leader over the claims of Russian hacking.
He said Mr Putin 'vehemently denied' the conclusions of American intelligence agencies.
Several Russians have been charged with hacking into Democratic email accounts to hurt Hillary Clinton's candidacy in 2016.
It later emerged that the two leaders had an additional, initially undisclosed discussion over dinner on
