Senate Democrats have a very bad idea.
Some are now pushing for the translator who assisted President Trump in his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to testify on the closed-door conversation before Congress. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen kickstarted the effort, but was quickly joined by several other senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
As my colleague Al Weaver reported on Wednesday, upper-chamber Republicans were much less enthusiastic about the proposal, rightfully pointing to the precedent it would set. Those senators included Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who despite his harsh words for Trump after his joint presser with Putin on Monday, said, “We’re not going to go and start having interpreters in private meetings come out and testify.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., may have put it best. “Sure, I’d be curious to do that, but everybody would,” he said. “But then I’d probably set a precedent that would cause problems in the future with any president.”
Given the bizarre performance Trump put up at the presser following his meeting with Putin, hunger for more insight into what transpired during their private meeting is understandable. But the information gleaned from hauling in Trump’s interpreter isn’t nearly worth the message it would send to other world leaders, who would have reason to worry the contents of just about every future meeting with the president may not remain private. And in some cases, that privacy is crucial to productive negotiating.
Trump’s penchant for precedent-breaking can sometimes be good. This time it was not. The wrong answer would be for Congress to set a bad precedent of their own.
