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Do you remember the secret tape of a meeting that House Republicans held in 2016, later discovered by The Washington Post?

David Leonhardt
Op-Ed Columnist

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” Kevin McCarthy, the second-ranking House Republican, told his colleagues during the meeting. Some of those colleagues then laughed, and McCarthy added: “Swear to God.”

Rohrabacher is Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican member of Congress from California with a long history of pro-Russian sympathies. Trump, of course, was then the leading Republican candidate for president.

And the last few days have highlighted the alarming Russian ties to both men.

On Tuesday, a Justice Department investigation led to the indictment of Maria Butina, charged with being a Kremlin agent posing as a pro-gun activist. The affidavit in the case mentions a planned meeting between a prominent Russian official and an unnamed member of the United States Congress.

That member, according to media reports, is Rohrabacher.

President Trump, meanwhile, tried to do some damage control yesterday. He walked back — sort of — his obviously false Monday claim that the Russians didn’t interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But his walkback was so grudging — and he quickly undermined it — that it seemed designed not to be persuasive. It instead seemed designed merely to be just strong enough to get some positive headlines and to allow Trump’s allies to wave away the whole incident.

“Likely the main reason Trump ‘clarified’ his comments: To give GOPers cover,” David Joachim of Bloomberg tweeted. Senators Marco Rubio and Rob Portman were among the Republicans who did precisely that, pretending the problem was now solved.

It’s not. There are plenty of reasons to wonder if the president of the United States has financial (or other) ties to a hostile foreign power. The same may apply to a member of Congress.

It’s time for the rest of Congress to use its Constitutional power and figure out the truth.

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