House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that she's never met with the current Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
"Not with this Russian ambassador,
no," Pelosi told POLITICO's Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer during a Playbook interview, when asked whether she had ever met with the Russian envoy.
But a file
photo from Pelosi's 2010 meeting with Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev shows Kislyak at the table across from Pelosi — then House speaker — and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Medvedev had been in the country for a meeting with President Barack Obama
a day earlier and stopped in on Capitol Hill to meet with congressional leaders as well.
Pelosi's explanation is similar to one offered by Sen. Claire McCaskill Thursday, after she swiped at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for privately meeting with Kislyak in 2016 and failing to disclose it when asked about communications with Russians during his confirmation proceedings in January. Sessions has emphasized that meetings with ambassadors are common for lawmakers and that he met with Kislyak in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat,
tweeted that in her 10 years on the Armed Services Committee, she had received "No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador.
Ever."
