Dana Rohrabacher is facing scrutiny from the special counsel and congressional lawmakers over his Russian ties.
Of the rotating cast of characters in the Russia saga, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s role is perhaps the most curious. Though he has no formal ties to Donald Trump’s campaign, the California Republican—whose consistent advocacy for warmer relations with Moscow reportedly
earned him a Kremlin code name—has intersected with Trumpworld at
critical points. Rohrabacher’s reputation as a Russophile has never been
a secret; the congressman has spent decades pushing for improved
relations between the U.S. and Russia, and his support for Vladimir Putin reached such a level that, in 2012, the F.B.I. warned
the lawmaker that Russian spies were trying to recruit him. But as
F.B.I. investigators and lawmakers alike seek to determine the breadth
of Russia’s election interference, Rohrabacher’s Kremlin ties and
repeated cameos have reportedly taken on a newfound significance, drawing scrutiny from Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional investigators amid efforts by his Republican colleagues to curtail his authority.
Like Sergey Kislyak, Rohrabacher has always hovered around the periphery of the Trump-Russia story. In April 2016, a Russian official provided Rohrabacher with a memo containing the same accusations against Democratic donors and the Hillary Clinton campaign that Natalia Veselnitskaya would detail to Donald Trump Jr. during their now-infamous meeting at Trump Tower months later. The same month Trump won the presidency, Rohrabacher met with Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., both of whom have emerged as key figures in the Russia probe and are expected to be indicted by Mueller’s team. In February, Rohrabacher dined privately with Alexander Torshin,
the deputy governor of the Russian central bank who reportedly sought
to set up a “backdoor” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Trump. And this past August, Rohrabacher traveled to London to meet with
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whom U.S.
investigators believe acted as an intermediary for the Kremlin to
release thousands of stolen e-mails damaging to the Clinton campaign.
Rohrabacher
dismissed the suggestion that any of these encounters were
questionable, citing his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs
subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, which oversees
Russia policy, as the reason for them. “I feel like I’m in good shape
politically,” Rohrabacher told the Times.
“My constituents couldn’t care less about this. They are not concerned
about Russia. They are concerned about the taxes on their home. They are
concerned about illegal immigrants coming into their neighborhood and
raping people.”
According to The New York Times,
Mueller is seeking to interview the congressman about his meeting with
Flynn and Flynn Jr., while both the F.B.I. and the Senate Intelligence
Committee want to hear Rohrabacher’s account of the meeting with
Assange. Meanwhile, Rohrabacher’s fellow G.O.P. lawmakers have moved to
limit his power. According to the Times, Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, ousted Rohrabacher’s top aide, Paul Behrends,
in July amid questions about his ties to Russian lobbyists, and exerted
greater oversight over Rohrabacher’s actions as chairman of the
subcommittee. And, back in California, Rohrabacher’s upcoming
re-election bid could be complicated by challenges on both flanks.
