Sen. Mark Warner had some interesting things to say this morning. See below the video for highlights.
- On Jared Kushner’s security clearance at the order of Donald Trump: “What I think is inappropriate is these security clearances should be given after the review of the national security officials; the fact that he in effect chooses to give a family member, overriding the recommendations of the community, bothers me a great deal… security clearances have not normally been used as political footballs but again this is in so many other areas the president is not adhering to traditional procedures…The whole idea that the president arbitrarily picks which family member to get security clearances overriding the advice of the intelligence community but we shouldn’t be surprised that this president has consistently been willing to override the advice of the intelligence community…instead this president seems to choose the word of dictators over the words of our intelligence community…there is a pattern here…”
- On Michael Cohen’s testimony him not having direct evidence of Trump or his campaign [having] colluded with Russia: “There’s lots of evidence; the question is what kind of conclusion we’re going to reach…Donald Trump and Michael Cohen misled the American public for months about the whole notion of trying to continue to get a Trump Tower project going in Moscow…The second is the evidence that Mr. Cohen put out that he received was in the presence of Donald Trump when Roger Stone called, indicated that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange from WikiLeaks, indicating that WikiLeaks was about to drop a bunch of very damaging information about Hillary Clinton…And then finally we have this whole question where it again again Mr. Cohen put out the fact that he believes that Mr. Trump knew about the meeting in Trump Tower that included Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the campaign manager Paul Manafort – clearly a meeting that was not about Russian adoptions, but was about the idea of turning over dirt on Hillary Clinton…Anyone that says there’s no evidence of collaboration, there’s plenty of evidence; the question is what kind of full conclusion do we reach…The notion that there’s no evidence, that’s just factually wrong…”
- On the Mueller report being handed over to Congress: “There is precedent’s been set within the last few years when Republican members of the House demanded all the underlying documents about the non-indictment of Hillary Clinton…I think the American public deserves to know, not only because we need to know what Trump and his organization knew…but also we need to make sure we have as much evidence out there as possible on how we prevent Russia or others from doing this again in the future.”
- On the situation in Virginia: “As somebody who spent 20 years trying to build a
brand about Virginia Democrats, and candidly Virginia, where we most recently won the award of the Amazon headquarters, it’s been very challenging. But if the governor and Lieutenant Governor are going to continue, I think the Lieutenant Governor…there needs to be a due process where the accusers get a chance to make their case, where the Lieutenant Governor gets to make his defense. And one of the things if the governor is going to continue to stay, what he needs to do is get out and start to try tore-earn the trust of Virginians. When I called for his resignation along with my friend Tim Kaine, we said the governor had lost the faith the people of Virginia. He has a right to try to regain that faith, but I believe that will involve him getting out and making that case directly to Virginians…We made our call weeks ago; both of these gentlemen, if they’re going to stay, there needs to be a process in place so they can go about trying to re-earn the faith of Virginians.”
NEW: Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said lawmakers have found “enormous evidence” of possible collusion between President Trump’s orbit and Russians during that election on #MTP. #IfiItsSunday https://t.co/e70MpP9eVE pic.twitter.com/zo8kS41Kjh
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 3, 2019
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