Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat: Donald Trump has ‘parroted’ Vladimir Putin

Sen. Mark Warner said Sunday that President Trump has “parroted” Russian policies in the first two years of his presidency.

His comments come after The New York Times reported that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into the president after he fired FBI Director James B. Comey, looking into whether Mr. Trump was working on behalf of Russian interests and obstructing justice.

In addition, The Washington Post reported that the president has prevented other administration officials from being privy to his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He never spoke ill about Russia,” Mr. Warner, Virginia Democrat, told CNN.

“It’s curious that throughout that whole summer, when these investigations started, you had Vladimir Putin policies almost being parroted by Donald Trump,” he added.

Mr. Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said committee members have interviewed hundreds of witnesses in their probe of Russian collusion in the 2016 election and have an “interesting story” to tell once the investigation is concluded.

The White House dismissed the reports about the FBI investigating the president, saying he has been tough on Russia by imposing strict sanctions. On Saturday, Mr. Trump told Fox News that reports saying he possibly was working on behalf of Russia were insulting.

But Mr. Warner said Congress imposed the tough sanctions on Mr. Putin — not the president.

“The sanctions that were passed by Congress, they passed by such an overwhelming amount Trump didn’t have the power to veto it,” Mr. Warner said.

He also said other media reports earlier last week that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort gave polling data to a Russian agent are curious, suggesting that data were later used to push certain efforts on social media and suppress the black vote.

“Why would you turn over that information?” the senator said. “It would be that kind of information that would inform the Russians later in the campaign when they launched their social media efforts.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, told CNN that Mr. Warner was dealing in innuendo. Mr. Johnson said he’s anxious to hear what special counsel Robert Mueller finds once his report is issued.

“I don’t want to deal in speculation. I want to deal in facts,” Mr. Johnson said.

He suggested that the president may not have made certain officials privy to his talks with Mr. Putin due to previous leaks in his administration.

“He was burned by leaks in other areas, and he was pretty frustrated by it so that might be one explanation,” Mr. Johnson said.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump ally, told ABC that the president should “embrace” The New York Times story about the FBI probe into him.

“It backs up his narrative: His narrative is that FBI agents were acting in a rogue manner, overstepping the normal course of business, because they had something against him,” Mr. Christie said.

And Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said he wants to know who leaked the information to the New York Times because it shows an anti-Trump agenda.

“It tells me a lot about the people running the FBI,” Mr. Graham told Fox News. “I don’t trust them as far as I’d throw them.”

The new Judiciary Committee chairman said he also wants to know how the FBI could open a counterintelligence probe into a sitting president.

“What kind of checks and balances are there?” he said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Eliot Engel, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the committee look into the president’s interactions with Russia following the reports about the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.

“Every time Trump meets with Putin, the country is told nothing. America deserves the truth and the Foreign Affairs Committee will seek to get to the bottom of it,” Mr. Engel tweeted on Sunday.

“We will be holding hearings on the mysteries swirling around Trump’s bizarre relationship with Putin and his cronies, and how those dark dealings affect our national security,” he added.