Vice President-elect Mike Pence became suddenly quite weasely this Sunday when asked if he could “flatly deny” any contact between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. When finally pinned down, his answer looked a lot like he was trying to inoculate himself from the situation.
WALLACE: I want to ask you about two very specific questions briefly so we can move on to domestic policy. We now know that the Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Flynn, had several conversations with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak, just at the time that President Obama was announcing new sanctions to the hacking of the U.S. election against Russia.
Number one: did Mike Flynn ever discuss lifting sanctions in any of those conversations? Do you know?
PENCE: I talked to General Flynn yesterday, and the conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats.
Then Wallace asked the second question and suddenly Pence turned furtive. First, he changed the subject to deny one particular allegation, about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen:
WALLACE: Second question: can you flatly deny—because this continues to be out there—that there were any contact at any point in the campaign between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russian operatives, including cutouts, as we know, about the hacking of the Democrats during the election?
PENCE: This—you know, some of this derives from this opposition research memo, I guess, Chris, that made its way around the Internet. There was about 24 hours were Michael Cohen, who has worked in the Trump Organization for many years, was accused for having a meeting in Prague, and finally, some news organizations did a little checking and found out that it was a different Michael Cohen. And Michael himself has never actually been to Prague.
WALLACE: I want to ask you about two very specific questions briefly so we can move on to domestic policy. We now know that the Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Flynn, had several conversations with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak, just at the time that President Obama was announcing new sanctions to the hacking of the U.S. election against Russia.
Number one: did Mike Flynn ever discuss lifting sanctions in any of those conversations? Do you know?
PENCE: I talked to General Flynn yesterday, and the conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to the new U.S. sanctions against Russia or the expulsion of diplomats.
Then Wallace asked the second question and suddenly Pence turned furtive. First, he changed the subject to deny one particular allegation, about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen:
WALLACE: Second question: can you flatly deny—because this continues to be out there—that there were any contact at any point in the campaign between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russian operatives, including cutouts, as we know, about the hacking of the Democrats during the election?
PENCE: This—you know, some of this derives from this opposition research memo, I guess, Chris, that made its way around the Internet. There was about 24 hours were Michael Cohen, who has worked in the Trump Organization for many years, was accused for having a meeting in Prague, and finally, some news organizations did a little checking and found out that it was a different Michael Cohen. And Michael himself has never actually been to Prague.
