United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 25 to discuss summits held by President Donald Trump, ANI reported.
Pompeo will publicly testify before the committee on Trump’s meeting on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland and his June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Politico quoted a Republican party aide as saying.
Pompeo’s testimony comes after Trump on Monday declared that he believed Putin’s claims that Russia had not interfered in the US presidential election. “They [US intelligence] said they think it’s Russia; I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He also said there was “no collusion at all”.
Putin reiterated that “the Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs, including election processes”. This came after a US grand jury charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with breaching the Democratic party’s computer networks in an election hacking case.
Trump has faced backlash for his comments, with former Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel saying that Trump had “failed America.” Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the joint conference held by the leaders after their meeting was “truly unbelievable,” while former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said Trump’s comments were “nothing short of treasonous.”
However, Trump on Tuesday appeared to have backtracked by saying he had “great confidence” in his people from the intelligence community.
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