Rep. Raskin: We Know FBI Dir. Patel Has Been ‘Very Soft on Putin and His Authoritarian, Fascistic Regime’

EXCERPT:

RASKIN: "Well, there are rumors now that they are rethinking the trip, and he may have decided to call it off, but nothing has been confirmed by the administration at this point. They’ve never disclosed why they’re going, what the purpose of the trip is and what could not be transacted, you know, by telephone or by messages back and forth. And nobody even knows why they are involved with them. Patel has wanted to tighten up his relationship with the Russians. We know he’s been very soft on Vladimir Putin and his authoritarian, fascistic regime for a long time. We know that he got $25,000 to work with the Kremlin-linked film producer to make a documentary about Donald Trump. So, we don’t like the looks of the whole thing. We also know he likes his foreign travel. He, of course, went to the winter Olympics in Italy. He went snorkeling at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. So he might be just viewing it as a junket, but then he’s not recognizing that Russia is an adversary of the United States which is actively helping Iran try to kill American soldiers, it has been involved in a bloodthirsty war against our democratic ally, Ukraine, and it has repeatedly intervened in our presidential elections, trying to subvert and undermine them both online and also by breaking into the emails of the DNC, the DCCC, Hillary Clinton, and working in every election cycle to try to unsettle our politics.”