Susan Rice officially turned down Sen. Lindsey Graham‘s invitation to testify regarding Russia’s interference in last year’s election. | Getty Trump blasts Susan Rice for declining request to testify before Senate panel

President Donald Trump criticized former national security adviser Susan Rice on Thursday morning, writing on Twitter that it was “not good” that Rice refused an invitation from Sen. Lindsey Graham to testify before a Senate subcommittee.

Rice, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and then as national security adviser for former President Barack Obama, officially turned down Graham’s invitation to testify regarding Russia’s interference in last year’s election before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee Crime and Terrorism.


Rice, already a controversial figure for her incorrect explanation of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, has also been accused of requesting the names of individuals associated with Trump’s campaign and transition team that were referenced in intelligence reports. Rice has denied that she or anyone else in the Obama administration used intelligence information for political purposes.

“Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor to President Obama, is refusing to testify before a Senate Subcommittee next week on allegations of unmasking Trump transition officials. Not good!” Trump wrote on Twitter, breaking his message up into two posts to accommodate the platform’s character limit.

Rice, who declined Graham’s request for testimony via a letter from her lawyer, said she turned down the invitation because it came only from the South Carolina Republican and was not bipartisan in nature. Rice’s attorney wrote that the former national security adviser had been advised by the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, that he did not agree Graham’s request.

Rice’s attorney also wrote that Graham’s invitation came less than two weeks before the scheduled hearing and was sent without consultation with Rice herself, “a professional courtesy that would customarily be extended to any witness.”