CNN’s Sciutto Asks Pelosi if Sen. Johnson is Seeking ‘Foreign’ Help with Election — But Fails to Ask if Democrats are Still Using Foreign Intelligence Agents
CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Monday whether Republicans were engaging with foreign powers to influence the 2020 election — but failed to ask whether Democrats had stopped using foreign intelligence agents to collect information for their own campaign.
“Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), he is working with a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker on dirt on the former Vice President Joe Biden. I just wonder, in your view, is that accepting foreign help in the election, and is it — would it be taking part in foreign interference to accept such help?” Sciutto asked during a morning interview with Pelosi.
Johnson, who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, is investigating the appointment of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, during Biden’s term as vice president. Pelosi suggested the investigation was leading Johnson to information linked to Russia.
“Especially when — I can’t really go so much into, but but when that foreign help is associated with the Kremlin, I think it’s really important,” Pelosi said. “Now, that could be unwitting with on the senator’s part. I don’t know what he knows. Now that’s why we want the intelligence community to tell the American people what they know, not jeopardizing sources and methods.”
Pelosi added there was “plenty” of information the intelligence community “could be telling the American people, including the United States senators who may be associating with some of these people.” She also faulted President Donald Trump for his claim that he hadn’t broached the issue in a recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The exchange came the same day conservatives were becoming vocal about the Democratic Party’s use of foreign intelligence operative Christopher Steele during the 2016 election. Steele produced the infamous Steele Dossier, which described alleged misdeeds by Trump, on behalf of Washington, D.C.-based research firm Fusion GPS. Marc Elias, an attorney for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, paid the firm to hand over the dirt.
“The Trump campaign has been steadily asked if it would accept foreign help. Democrats have avoided the same scrutiny.” Ric Grenell, who served for two months as Trump’s intelligence chief, wrote back, “It’s like the DC media mob hasn’t read the declassified documents.”
Trump campaign Communicators Director Matt Wolking engaged in a similar scuffle with Biden campaign staffer Andrew Bates — who previously worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign — on Monday. After Bates tweeted a story’s claim that the Trump campaign “refused to say whether it had accepted materials related to Biden from any foreign nationals,” Wolking responded, “Was it wrong for your boss to hire a foreign operative to work with Russians close to the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election?” Bates did not respond to the question, leading Wolking to ask again.
Sciutto didn’t raise the contentious issue during his interview with Pelosi.
Watch above via CNN.
