President Donald Trump's nominee for the Agriculture Department's chief scientist, Sam Clovis, has been "a fully cooperative witness" for the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian election interference, Politico reports.
Clovis, a former Trump campaign co-chair, acted as a policy adviser during the election, and communicated with former campaign aide George Papadopoulos, telling him in an email to meet with a Russian official to form a positive relationship with Moscow.
"Make the trip, if it is feasible," Clovis wrote to Papadopoulos in an August email, according court documents recently made available to The Washington Post.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts confirmed to Politico that Clovis has been "a fully cooperative witness" in the probe.
"I don't think he's a target of any investigation," Roberts added.
Clovis' attorney, Victoria Toensing, told the Post that her client was "being polite" when he pushed Papadopoulos to make the meeting, and that the Trump campaign had a "strict rule that no person could travel abroad as a representative of the campaign."
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