The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday said that Republicans don’t want Russian agent Maria Butina to testify before Congress because they worry she would “tarnish the NRA,” Raw Story reports.
CNN host Alisyn Camerota asked Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., if he knew that Butina had worked to create a backchannel between President Donald Trump, then a candidate, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We certainly knew about her and part of the role she was playing we didn’t know whether she was an agent of a foreign power,” the congressman replied, noting that the committee has seen emails that talked about “setting up a secret back channel through the NRA.”
“We heard credible allegations that the Russians may have been funneling money through the NRA so, yes, we wanted to pursue this but like many other things,” Schiff said. “When it got too hot, the Republican reaction was, ‘We don’t want to know. We’d rather not know.'”
“But just to be clear,” Camerota said. “You’re saying that your Republican colleagues on the committee called her and said do not come in? How exactly did they block her sharing information with you?”
“During the course of time when they were actively in the investigation, the majority that is, we said let’s bring in Maria Butina, here are the reasons why we should hear from her, here are the reasons why we should hear from Paul Erickson who is alleged to have been involved in setting up this secret back channel,” Schiff said.
“The Republicans were unwilling,” he continued. “They said no. We don’t want to have them come in, we don’t want to hear what they have to say. They wouldn’t explain why but it was very clear that anything that might tarnish the NRA, anything that might lead to discoverable evidence that might incriminate the White House or people around the president, they didn’t want to hear.”
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