The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee declined on Sunday to say if he believed President Trump was working on behalf of the Russians amid new reports questioning the depth of the relationship between the White House and the Kremlin.
After firing FBI Director James Comey in the spring of 2017, the agency reportedly launched a counterintelligence investigation into whether Russia was influencing Trump’s actions, a case Trump said was opened with “no reason” and “no proof.”
Trump also reportedly took extraneous measures to try to protect his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including pressuring a translator to withhold information on discussions between the two leaders from administration officials, according to the Washington Post.
When asked about those reports and whether he believed Russia had outsize influence on White House operations, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., hedged, opting to highlight the recent revelations that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort shared polling data with a Ukranian consultant with potential ties to Russian intelligence.
“It would be that kind of information that would inform the Russians later in the campaign when they launched their social media efforts,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Warner declined to comment on the content of any briefing he may have received on the matter as vice chairman of the intelligence panel.
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, also declined to directly comment on the reports, but defended Trump’s ability to keep his conversations with world leaders private.
“This is not a traditional president; he has unorthodox means,” he told CNN. “In the end, I’m going to judge this president based on his actions.”
The White House has imposed a number of sanctions on Russian businesses and top officials. Trump on Saturday tweeted that he has been “FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President.”
