What is it about Sergey V. Lavrov that always makes high-ranking American officials look hapless?
In 2006, Mr. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, put Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an awkward position when technicians did not turn off the microphones at a lunch in Moscow. Reporters overheard the two of them bickering over American policy in Iraq. “What does that mean?” she said at one point. “I think you understand,” he replied.
Three years later, Hillary Clinton commemorated her first meeting with Mr. Lavrov after she became secretary of state by presenting him with a gag gift, a bright red button, stamped with what she said was the Russian word for “reset.” “You got it wrong,” he scolded, pointing to the faulty translation as cameras flashed. “It means overcharged.”
On Wednesday, he put Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in a bad spot after a reporter asked if President Trump’s dismissal of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, hours earlier would “cast a shadow” over their meeting. Mr. Tillerson turned away without answering, but Mr. Lavrov wisecracked: “Was he fired? You’re kidding! You’re kidding!”
Later, at the White House, Mr. Lavrov met President Trump for what was supposed to be a private meeting, with no reporters or cameras allowed into the Oval Office, save for official photographers from each government. Afterward, the Russian state news agency, Tass, published pictures of Mr. Trump and Mr. Lavrov grinning broadly, alongside the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak.
White House officials were furious, saying their Russian counterparts had tricked them. The point of barring the news media, a senior official said, was to prevent the publication of images of a meeting that was, at a minimum, badly timed, given that Mr. Trump had just fired the director of the agency investigating his campaign’s ties to Russia.
The Russian government owns Tass, so a photographer working for the agency could arguably be considered an official photographer. But White House officials said the understanding was that the photos would be for official use, not for public distribution.
Mr. Kislyak’s participation added another sensitive element: It was his meetings before the inauguration with two of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, Michael T. Flynn and Jeff Sessions, that led to Mr. Flynn’s dismissal as national security adviser and forced Mr. Sessions, the attorney general, to recuse himself from the investigation of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia and of Russian meddling in the presidential election.
Now, the White House is under fire for excluding the American news media, but not its Russia competitors, from a high-level meeting. Some experts have even called it a security breach, suggesting that the photographer could have smuggled a bug into the Oval Office in his camera equipment.
“I’m actually a bit shocked that that happened,” Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, said on CNN. “The lack of transparency of having the press in that meeting is troubling.”
