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Thursday 17 January 2019 - 04:53

Dems want to access to Trump’s interpreters at meetings with Putin

Story Code : 772540
In this AFP file photo taken on July 16, 2018 US President Donald Trump, with interpreter Marina Gross, waits ahead of a meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In this AFP file photo taken on July 16, 2018 US President Donald Trump, with interpreter Marina Gross, waits ahead of a meeting in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed and New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez wrote a letter to the president on Wednesday requesting congressional interviews with the interpreters.

“In light of the continuing level of secrecy shrouding your interactions with the Russian leader, we insist that the interpreters for these interactions, especially the individual who interpreted for your meeting with President Putin in Helsinki, be made immediately available for interviews with the relevant committees in Congress,” the two lawmakers wrote.

The White House has been under pressure over renewed scrutiny of Trump’s possible ties with Russia amid a special counsel investigation into the Kremlin’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election, which yielded President Trump.

“Your insistence on secrecy related to these interactions, even with your own staff, is alarming, unprecedented, and could be in violation of the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act,” read the letter. “[W]e believe it to be in the national security interests of the United States that any record of these conversations be preserved and immediately provided to Congress.”

There are no detailed records of Trump’s face-to-face meetings with Putin as the US president concealed any details, according to a report published by The Washington Post last week.

At a press conference last year following a summit in the Finnish capital Helsinki, Trump backed the Russian leader’s denial of alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election despite the American intelligence community’s assessment.

Trump’s performance kicked off a hailstorm of criticism against him, forcing the president to deny his comment about alleged Russian meddling later and cancel a scheduled meeting with Putin.

Russia has denied meddling in the election as well as being in possession of any damaging information on the US president.
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