Pompeo called on to reassure lawmakers

WASHINGTON» Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced a bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as he defended President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid an onslaught of questions from lawmakers about what transpired in the two-hour meeting in Helsinki and where the president is taking U.S. foreign policy.

Pompeo’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came as the White House postponed a follow-up meeting with Putin amid criticism of Trump’s conflicting statements on Russian election interference.

In an effort to reassure lawmakers, Pompeo said the president accepts the views of the intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and declared that the U.S. would never recognize Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

“President Trump has stated that he accepts our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election,” Pompeo said. “He has a complete and proper understanding of what happened. I know; I briefed him on it for over a year.”

But Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the panel, told Pompeo that lawmakers are “filled with serious doubts about this White House and its conduct of American foreign policy.”

He challenged Pompeo to satisfy bipartisan concerns that the White House is “making it up as they go,” and that Pompeo himself may not know what is going on.

“We really need a clear understanding of what is going on,” Corker said.