WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Tuesday in response to a report in the New York Times that President Trump asked Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey to drop the Flynn investigation the day after Flynn was fired from his position as National Security Advisor.
“Alarming doesn’t begin to describe the reporting in the New York Times tonight. If true, it is the most explosive evidence to date that the President attempted to obstruct the investigation into his associates’ connections to Russia. It is time for Republican leadership in Congress to publicly acknowledge how dangerous the President’s actions and rhetoric are to American rule of law – the very foundation of our nation. The Department of Justice must immediately appoint a Special Counsel to investigate potential criminal ties and collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian Government in the 2016 election, in order to restore the credibility of the DOJ and FBI. And it is long past time to establish an independent, nonpartisan commission to comprehensively investigate Russian interference in our country and to make public its findings and recommendations for how we can avoid this kind of nightmare in the future.”
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