Vice President Mike Pence had no contact with Russian officials or operatives during the presidential campaign in 2016, his spokesman made clear on Thursday.
The clarification came one day after Pence’s spokesman, Marc Lotter, gave an interview on Fox News and sidestepped direct questions on the topic.
“The Vice President had no meetings with any individual associated with the Russian government during the campaign or transition,” Lotter said Thursday in a statement to CNN.
On Wednesday, Fox host Bill Hemmer pressed Lotter three times, finally asking, “Is that a yes or a no, did he or did he not? And was it relevant, in fact?”
“I’m not aware of anything that I have seen,” Lotter began. “All of the focus that I saw with Vice President Pence during the campaign and since then has been focused on working the agenda that the people sent him to Washington to accomplish. That’s what the vice president’s doing. That’s what the president is doing.”
Unreported meetings with Russian officials or citizens have dogged the Trump administration and officials. But those matters took a significant turn this past week after reports by the New York Times ultimately culminated in Donald Trump Jr. tweeting out emails that confirmed a meeting he held in June of last year with a Russian lawyer in an attempt to acquire damaging information on Hillary Clinton and her campaign.
Such issues are likely sensitive to Pence in particular, after the way events unfolded earlier this year with Trump’s then-national security adviser Mike Flynn. Pence said on national TV that Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador didn’t include discussions about sanctions. That was later proven to be untrue after a transcript of a phone call between the two which had been picked up through foreign surveillance activities was leaked to the press.
