The steady drip of Russia-related controversies surrounding the Trump administration are becoming a “nuisance” and “distraction,” a Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Monday.
Texas representative Will Hurd joined South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, also a member of the intelligence panel, in urging Trump associates to be upfront about any potential connections or meetings they may have had with the Kremlin.
“I just hope everybody who was connected with the campaign has reviewed their outlook files and made sure all their details are out there now, because this is becoming a nuisance and a distraction from some of the conversations we should be having,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.
His remarks come as congressional investigators dig in to a 2016 meeting between the president’s son, White House senior aide Jared Kushner, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Hurd, a former CIA officer, added that he would not have attended the meeting.
The Texas congressman stressed that the intelligence committee is in the process of probing the meeting, but said that it seems like the group thought they were meeting with Russian government officials.
“The little bit of information I have seen out in the press, I think they did believe that they were meeting with officials of the Russian government,” he said.
Hurd added that it was possible that the Russian government was trying to test the waters and gauge any interest from the Trump campaign.
“This is something that does sound like it came out of their playbook,” Hurd said. “One thing the Russians have been doing for decades is covert influence … they have to resort to asymmetrical warfare, and a lot of that is running dangles, running double agent operations.”
“But we need to review this, we need to be thoughtful to make sure that we’re not jumping to conclusions,” he added.
Rinat Akhmetshin, a reported Soviet counterintelligence officer and lobbyist also attended the meeting. Veselnitskaya has denied acting on behalf of the Kremlin and the Russian government has said it doesn’t “know anything about” Akhmetshin.
