Democrats Demands Hearings Into Trump-Putin Helsinki Summit “Immediately”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer is demanding for his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the Republican leadership team to convene a public hearing on any deal made between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at their recent summit in Helsinki.

Schumer wants more information on anything Trump might have promised to Putin. “Our Republican colleagues need to join us in demanding testimony from the president’s national security team that was in Helsinki and we need to do that immediately … to assess what President Trump might have committed to President Putin in secret,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “President Trump’s public statements were alarming enough.”

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The demand follows the joint press conference on Monday where Trump appeared to downplay the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. Schumer also noted that the two world leaders met for almost two hours and the absence of notes or readouts and said, “You can’t assume anything — but that as weak as he was in public before President Putin, he was even worse in private . . . Why else did he not want anyone else in the room?” he said.

Schumer asked the reporters, “Where are the notes from the meeting? What did the President agree to? Was Secretary Pompeo briefed afterwards on what happened? Were any other members of the President’s team? The American people need to know what has happened. The American people deserve to know what has happened. It’s our security at risk.”

Besides a public hearing Schumer also wants tougher sanctions on Russia, an extradition of the 12 Russian indicted last week by special counsel Robert Mueller and for Republicans to stop publicly criticizing Mueller.

Article by Steven Abendroth