Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said Wednesday that he is meeting with officials from the State Department and Justice Department, as well as members of Congress to discuss the possibility that Russia will indict him and other officials of unspecified crimes that McFaul said they did not commit.
"I want my president, my commander-in-chief, to tell Vladimir Putin under no circumstances should you go after these American government officials, former and present, and that will have dangerous consequences for our relationship," McFaul said Wednesday on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe."
"Why is it so hard for this administration just to say on the record this is absurd, you cannot arrest our government officials for doing their jobs. Because if they don’t say that, it sends a very dangerous message that our diplomats, that our military service officers, that our intelligence officers working abroad can somehow be, you know, indicted and prosecuted for crazy crimes that, of course, we didn’t do," McFaul said.
"It’s in the national interest for them to do this. It’s not just about me," McFaul said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a joint press conference, suggested that Washington officials could interview 12 Russians that were indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe if the Russians were allowed to interview a list of Americans.
The next day Moscow released the list, which included McFaul. The White House said that Trump "disagrees" with the Russian offer.
McFaul, a vocal critic of Putin, dismissed Putin’s accusations against him Sunday. “I broke no Russian laws. But Putin uses disinformation and the law to silence his critics or chase them out of the country," McFaul tweeted.
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