Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that President Trump acts like someone who’s been ”compromised” by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“I certainly think he’s acting like someone who is compromised,” Schiff said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “And it may very well be that he is compromised or it may very well be that he believes that he’s compromised, that the Russians have information on him.”
Six days after Trump’s sit-down in Helsinki with Putin, guests on the Sunday news shows were still trying to interpret his head-scratching performance in which he sided with Putin over the US intelligence agencies — only to walk back his comments a day later.
Schiff classified Trump’s face-to-face summit with Putin with only translators present as being “productive for Vladimir Putin.”
“The reality is we have no idea what this president, our president, agreed to,” he said. “That’s an asymmetric advantage for the Kremlin because they do. The Kremlin intelligence agents know exactly what took place in that meeting.”
Last week House Democrats tried to subpoena the interpreter, one of the few people to know the contents of Trump’s two-hour meeting with Putin.
“And on a party line basis the Republicans rejected it,” Schiff said. “Some of whom talk a good game, but when it comes to defending the country, they’re not willing to follow through.”
The California Democrat told anchor George Stephanopoulos that House Intelligence Committee Democrats pushed for an investigation into whether Russians were laundering money through the Trump organization and were also stonewalled by Republican lawmakers.
“I hope that [special counsel] Bob Mueller’s investigating it because, again, if that’s the leverage the Russians are using, it would not only explain the president’s behavior, but it would help protect the country by knowing that, in fact, our president was compromised,” Schiff said.
He said that Republicans also didn’t want to investigate whether Moscow was funneling money through the National Rifle Association, a group that alleged Russian agent Maria Butina got cozy with in advance of the 2016 election.
“Again, we tried to look into allegations that the Russians may have been funneling money through the NRA, but the GOP found that too hot to handle,” Schiff said.
“There are serious matters and I think there’s no ignoring the fact that for whatever reason, this president acts like he’s compromised,” Schiff added.
