President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on Wednesday, sources told CBS News.

The real estate developer Steve Witkoff, whom President Trump made his plenipotentiary in foreign conflicts, is either foolish, mendacious or naive — or perhaps all of the above. Whatever the case, he has no business negotiating something as complex and complicated as a putative peace between an imperialist Russia and its victim, Ukraine.

In his first public remarks about the controversy, Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump 's Middle East envoy, dismissed a Wall Street Journal report that he used the encrypted messaging app Signal during recent negotiations in Moscow. Newsweek reached out to The Wall Street Journal via email for comment.