Lawmakers to Trump: Turn Over Any Transcript of Meeting With Russians

By Elise Viebeck / The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – A growing number of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are calling on President Donald Trump to hand over the transcript of the White House meeting last week in which he revealed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Members of Congress – primarily Democrats – have spent several days demanding that Trump turn over tapes of White House meetings after he suggested, while defending his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, that he records his conversations.

But the calls intensified Tuesday morning after Trump seemed to acknowledge on Twitter that he had shared sensitive information during his meeting with the Russians. [Truthdig editor’s note: Click here to see a New York Times article on President Trump’s Tuesday morning tweets.]

“We want to know what took place in that meeting, and my understanding is there may be recordings or transcript,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “Obviously, we’d like to see that with appropriate redactions.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump should release the alleged transcript “if [he] has nothing to hide.”

“Until the administration provides the transcript, until the administration fully explains the facts of this case, the American people will rightly doubt if their president can handle our nation’s most closely kept secrets,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

A former Marine intelligence officer now serving in the House said transparency demands the release of the transcript, if it exists.

“As an intelligence officer by training, I know firsthand the life and death implications of safeguarding classified information,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., a freshman lawmaker, tweeted Tuesday.

“Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed,” he wrote.

The requests for more information portend a difficult week for the White House on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are seeking to maintain focus on their legislative agenda, including the negotiation of a Senate health-care bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who on Monday declined to comment on Trump’s disclosures, said Tuesday that he wished the White House would produce “less drama.”

“I think it would be helpful if the president spent more time on things we’re trying to accomplish and less time on other things,” McConnell said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

He continued to dodge questions about the story, first reported by The Washington Post, that Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russia.

“I’ve heard the allegation. I’ve heard the response. I don’t think I have anything to add to what I’ve read in terms of the impact of this in the future,” he told Bloomberg.

Lawmakers expressed shock and concern Monday night at the news of Trump’s disclosures, which jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The information Trump relayed, officials said, was provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government.

Lawmakers’ requests are likely to be complicated by the sensitivity of the information that Trump shared. One White House aide called for the problematic portion of Trump’s discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

White House aides have neither confirmed nor denied the possibility that Trump records his conversations at the White House. But lawmakers continued to seize on it as the day went on.

“Clearly if there is some kind of a readout from that meeting and a transcript, that means there’s probably a tape. We need to get a hold of that,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at an event hosted by the liberal Center for American Progress.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who on Monday called the notion of Trump sharing classified information with Russia “appalling,” suggested that it is important to obtain any tapes in case the Trump administration tries to get rid of them.

“All potential Trump tapes should be subpoenaed to uncover truth and preserve evidence – both Comey and meeting with Russians,” he tweeted.

The developing story is expected to consume Congress’s attention, particularly as House members return later Tuesday from a week-long recess. On Tuesday, lawmakers were mobbed by reporters in the hallways asking questions about Trump’s disclosure.

Schumer said the administration is facing a “crisis of credibility,” given the conflicting messages from Trump and his aides on Comey’s firing and the meeting with Russian officials.

“In one fell swoop, the president could have unsettled our allies, emboldened our adversaries, endangered our military and intelligence officers the world over, and exposed our nation to greater risk,” Schumer said.

Several Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins, Maine, called for an immediate briefing from the Trump administration.

“Although the President has the legal authority to disclose classified information, it would be very troubling if he did share such sensitive reporting with the Russians,” Collins said in a statement Tuesday.

Several members of the GOP suggested that transcripts of Trump’s meeting with Russian officials ought to be revealed to lawmakers, if they exist.

“The administration should promptly share with Congress, in a classified setting, the precise details of the president’s meeting,” Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., a libertarian-leaning iconoclast who frequently breaks with his party, wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

Republicans from both swing and conservative districts called for more information from the White House.

“We need to have immediate classified briefings on what occurred at this meeting so that Congress can at least know as much as Russian leaders,” stated Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., whose moderate northern Virginia district went for Hillary Clinton in November.

Both Gallagher and Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo, R-N.J. – a member of the House Intelligence Committee who expressed concerns about Trump’s disclosure – represent districts that swung strongly toward Trump.

“Classified intelligence is classified for a reason and must be respected and protected as such at all levels of government,” he wrote on Twitter. “Media reports are deeply concerning & I will raise issue surrounding disclosure of classified info in [the Intelligence Committee] when we meet this week.”

Elise Viebeck is a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. The Washington Post’s David Weigel, Ed O’Keefe and Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report.