Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said that there is “not a person” in Washington who would have turned down a meeting with someone offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.
“There’s not a person in this town who would not take a meeting to get material like that,” Rohrabacher said in an off-the-cuff conversation with Mother Jones reporter David Corn, who published a story about the interaction.
{mosads}Rohrabacher made the remark in response to a question about reports that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was prepared to say that Trump knew of and approved a meeting at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential race with a Russian lawyer promising negative information on Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
Trump has repeatedly said he had no knowledge of the meeting, which was attended by Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, among others.
“It’s a big zero” Rohrabacher said of he meeting, according to Corn, before making the comment that anyone would have taken it.
Rohrabacher also pushed back on separate reports that he dined with Maria Butina, the Russian woman who is accused of acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the U.S.
“She was at the other end of table of 30 people and now they say I ‘dined’ with her,” he said, dismissing the charges against Butina as “fake news.”
“The charges are B.S.,” he said. “She was just a gofer.”
Butina has been accused of working with a Russian banking executive to infiltrate the National Rifle Association and form connections with top GOP figures.
Rohrabacher has come under scrutiny for a series of ties to Russia and is often described as “Putin’s favorite congressman.”
He faces a tough reelection race this year — the Cook Political Report rates the race a “toss-up.” Rohrabacher predicted to Corn that he would win by 5 to 10 percentage points.