Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are dangerously putting their heads in the sand and ignoring the obvious national security risks that have arisen from Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, a meeting that Donald Trump insisted he attend alone, with no aides, no recordings. Well, U.S. recordings. You can bet your Russian asset Vladimir Putin recorded the conversation. There are several reasons it is critical for Congress to hear from the U.S. translator who attended the meeting and to get her personal notes, starting with the fact that Donald Trump emerged from the meeting and took the side of Russia on a worldwide stage over U.S. Intelligence services.
But that isn’t the only cause for concern. After the pathetically weak performance of Donald Trump at the press conference, the Russians issued a statement saying they looked forward to implementing the security agreement reached by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. From CNN:
"The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is ready for practical implementation of the agreements reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump in the sphere of international security achieved at the Helsinki summit," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a Russian military spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday.
One minor problem: Donald Trump has made no mention of any security agreement that he agreed to in that private meeting. This is a national security risk. What did Putin ask for and what did Trump agree to? The American people have a right to know. Furthermore, during an increasingly rare White House press briefing yesterday, spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke about the possibility of turning over attorney Bill Browder (now a British citizen) and former United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to Russian authorities for questioning. Sanders noted that Trump hadn’t made any decision and would be seeking advice from “his team.” Let that sink in for a minute. Donald Trump didn’t immediately and forcefully reject the idea of turning over an American to a murderous dictator for questioning.
With those alarm bells going off, Democrats in the House and the Senate want to quickly move to bring in the only American witness to this conversation, seeking to have the U.S. translator testify to Congress about exactly what happened in that meeting. Every single Republican in the House just voted against it.
Why aren’t House Republicans interested in our national security? Why do they continue to put their party over the interests of this nation? This is vital! There is some hope because Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is publicly saying Congress needs to get to the bottom of what happened.
If all of that weren’t bad enough, they also voted down a package to upgrade cyber security infrastructure for our elections.
Regardless of whether your representatives are Democrats or Republicans, we urge you to take one minute of your day to pick up the phone and contact your elected representatives to demand they subpoena the translator.