The White House on Thursday said President Trump “disagrees” with Russia’s request to interview former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers in exchange for letting special counsel Robert Mueller speak with Kremlin officials who have been indicted as part of his investigation.
“It is a proposal that was made in insincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”
The statement comes after Trump said the proposal was an “incredible offer” during a joint press conference with Putin earlier this week. On Wednesday, Sanders declined to say whether the president was considering it.
“There was some conversation about it, but there wasn’t a commitment made on behalf of the United States. And the president will work with his team, and we’ll let you know if there’s an announcement on that front,” Sanders had said.
[Russia: Mueller trying to sabotage Trump-Putin summit]
The possibility that Trump would allow the Russian government to interrogate former U.S. officials like Ambassador Michael McFaul drew the ire of bipartisan lawmakers and State Department officials.
“The administration needs to make it unequivocally clear that in a million years this wouldn’t be under consideration,” former Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted Wednesday.
“When the White House was given the opportunity to categorically reject this moral equivalency between a legitimate indictment with lots of data and evidence to support it from Mr. Mueller with a crazy, cockamamie scheme with no relationship to facts and reality whatsoever, the White House refused to do that,” McFaul told MSNBC earlier Thursday.
Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officials last week over their involvement in cyberattacks against U.S. institutions during the 2016 election. Trump, however, said at his press conference with Putin it was unlikely the individuals charged would be extradited to the U.S. to face prosecution.
