Today, Vice Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy demanding a hearing with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats after several Republican Members of Congress raised concerns that they believe President Trump is being manipulated by President Vladimir Putin.
Cummings and Connolly wrote:
“For example, in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, Rep. Will Hurd, the Chairman of our Subcommittee on Information Technology, wrote, ‘Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them’.
“Similarly, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, said in an interview this weekend, ‘The president was manipulated by Vladimir Putin.’ He added that he was ‘sickened by the exchange’. …
“[Y]ou have refused our request to invite the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to testify during today’s hearing on election security, instead offering a classified briefing at a later date. While we will accept any information from ODNI, a closed-door briefing is not an adequate substitute for public testimony from the nation’s top intelligence official on how Russia attacked our state election systems in 2016 and is continuing to interfere with the midterm elections in 2018.
“We ask that the Committee hold a hearing with the Director of National Intelligence and other witnesses who can inform the Committee and the public about the extent of the Russian threat. President Trump’s susceptibility to manipulation by President Putin is a matter of national security and warrants the urgent attention of this Committee.”
The full letter follows and is available here.
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Chris Graham
