“We strongly support legitimate inquiry into any illegal activity in our elections — including quid pro quo deals, money laundering, corruption, and violation of campaign finance laws. At the same time, we caution against the politicization, sensationalism, and collapse of journalistic standards that has plagued media coverage of the investigation,” Stein said in a statement posted on her website.

Jill Stein, the Lexington doctor who was the Green Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, says she’s cooperating with a request for documents from a US Senate committee investigating Russian meddling in the election .


Stein drew attention after attending a December 2015 event in Moscow celebrating the anniversary of a state-sponsored Russian news organization. Investigators have been interested in the event because former national security adviser Michael Flynn also attended and sat beside Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Flynn has reached a plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller on charges that he lied to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Mueller has been investigating, separately from several congressional committees, whether the campaign of President Trump colluded with Russia, which wanted to throw the election to Trump.

Stein, who was seated at the same banquet table as Flynn and Putin, said she accepted an invitation to attend the Moscow event and that her campaign did not receive payment or reimbursement for the trip.

“Our campaign has observed the highest standards of transparency and integrity in our interactions with foreign nationals as well as Americans. Our communications with Russian individuals regarding an invitation to speak on international relations at the RT [news network] 10th anniversary media conference will confirm what we stated publicly at that time and since: that we did not accept any payment or even reimbursement for the trip,” she said.


She said she made the trip “with the goal of reaching an international audience and Russian officials with a message of Middle East peace, diplomacy, and cooperation against the urgent threat of climate change, consistent with long-standing Green principles and policies.”

Stein received about 1 percent of the popular vote in the 2016 election. Some Democrats were angry because they believe she drained crucial votes from Democrat Hillary Clinton. Stein told Politico in June that she would be glad to testify to Congress. Asked if she had any regrets, she said, “I don’t think so.”

Stein tweeted out her statement early Tuesday morning.

Complying with Senate Committee request, Jill Stein urges safeguarding elections from interference - while cautioning against the targeting of political opposition pic.twitter.com/YuHsBWJA0Z — Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) December 19, 2017

Later Tuesday morning she took to Twitter to criticize a report in the liberal news site ThinkProgress that she had “ducked questions” about the trip.

Blatantly false info from @thinkprogress, Podesta & Neera Tanden's mouthpiece funded by Wall Street, Wal-Mart & Gulf dictators. They say I've "ducked the question" even after I've answered it over and over in interview after interview. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/w7W1fOlTxJ — Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) December 19, 2017

Since the news of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s interest in her broke Monday, she also has retweeted several posts from people suggesting that the Democrats were behind the committee’s interest in her Russia trip.

Material from Globe wire services was used in this report.