Sen. Bob Menendez Battles Mike Pompeo: Your Silence on Talks With Trump About Mueller Probe is ‘Troubling’

During Mike Pompeo’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) pressed the CIA director by asking him about his various conversations with President Donald Trump.

Melendez began by citing a report from 2017 which said that Trump asked Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to personally interfere with former FBI Director James Comey’s investigation into Michael Flynn. Pompeo declined to elaborate on that conversation, saying “I don’t recall” what exactly was said that day, though he insisted “the article’s suggestion that [Trump] asked me to do anything that was improper is false.”

“I have to tell you,” Pompeo said, “with the president, he’s never asked me to do anything that I considered remotely improper.”

Melendez and Pompeo continue to go back-and-forth on the Russia investigation and the Trump Administration’s policy for dealing with Moscow. Pompeo refused to go into his “private conversations” with Trump or Robert Mueller, which prompted more questions about whether the president asked him not to speak on such matters.

“I’m sure if I asked Special Counsel Mueller a simple question whether you were told you couldn’t, I don’t think he would say you couldn’t, so it is your choice that you’re not seeking to do so,” Melendez said. “For me, these questions…are critically important. It goes to the essence of how you approach one of the most critical issues that we have, and your unwillingness to speak to it is troubling to me.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[Image via screengrab]

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