Senate Democrats demand documents from Trump-Putin summit, including interpreter's notes

Deirdre Shesgreen | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 2 Dems want to interview interpreter in room with Trump and Putin Everyone wants to be in the room where it happened, but the only witness was President Trump’s interpreter...Marina Gross...And two Democrats are calling for her to testify. Veuer's Chandra Lanier has the story.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are demanding all internal documents related to President Donald Trump’s controversial private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki — including notes taken by the president’s interpreter.

That interpreter, Marina Gross, was the only other American in the room when Trump and Putin met for two hours behind closed doors last month. The White House and the State Department have provided few details about what the two leaders discussed.

Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the lack of information is unacceptable, especially given the ongoing investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.

“We make this request only as a direct result of the extraordinary and, to our knowledge, unprecedented circumstances of President Trump’s two hour, one-on-one meeting with a leader identified as a threat to the United States by President Trump’s own National Security Strategy,” Menendez wrote in a letter Friday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Menendez and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who also sits on the committee, asked Pompeo to turn over Gross’s notes, along with any classified or unclassified cables, memos, and policy directives related to the Trump-Putin summit.

“This situation requires urgent congressional oversight particularly in light of any potential U.S. commitments resulting from the meeting and to understand and address any Russian misinformation related to the meeting,” the two lawmakers wrote to Pompeo.

A State Department spokeswoman confirmed the agency had received the letter but would not comment further.

Lawmakers in both parties were alarmed when Trump emerged from the closed-door meeting with Putin to make a series of conciliatory comments toward the Russian leader. At a joint news conference in Helsinki, Trump said he believed Putin’s denial that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 election and cast doubt on the conclusions of U.S. intelligence officials that the Kremlin did in fact try to sway the election in Trump’s favor.

Trump and other White House officials later tried to walk back those comments.