US Lawmakers requested a transcribed interview with the White House Records Management Director concerning meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a letter on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2019) US Lawmakers requested a transcribed interview with the White House Records Management Director concerning meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a letter on Monday."In addition, the Committee now requests a transcribed interview by that same date with the Director of the White House Office of Records Management or another official competent to address these issues and other questions about the White house's compliance with the Presidential Records Act," Cummings said in a letter addressed to the White House Chief of Staff.
Cummings requested an explanation from the White House on why the administration failed to answer the questions regarding Trump's reported confiscation and destroying of documents on the meetings with Putin, which were raised in the letter written on February 21 by him, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Eliot Engel, and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Adam Schiff.
"On March 21, 2019, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter in response to our request, but it incorrectly asserted that all of our questions had been 'fully' addressed in previous correspondence," Cummings said. "In fact, White House has not answered any of these questions. The three letters cited by the White House Counsel as examples of 'prior responsive letters' were sent to 20 months, 16 months, and 2 months before our February 21, 2019, request."
The House oversight committee, he added, wants to know by July 8 if Trump took possession of the interpreter's notes from Hamburg and/or altered or destroyed them. The body also wants to know if any other officials have records of meetings or calls between Putin and Trump.
Cummings asked how Trump documented and preserved records related to "hundreds of calls and meetings" that a White House staffer claimed do not appear on the schedule.
Trump and Putin held their first official meeting on July 7, 2017, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. The two leaders planned to meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, late last year, but Trump canceled the meeting in light of the Kerch Strait incident. Trump said a summit with Putin was possible only after Russia released the Ukrainian sailors it detained over violating the Russian maritime border during that incident.
Meanwhile, Putin and Trump held phone talks earlier in May and discussed crafting a new nuclear arms control deal, increasing bilateral trade, denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Putin and Trump also addressed the conflicts in Venezuela and Ukraine.
