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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for meeting with Russian Offical during a Politico forum on Friday.
Politico‘s Jake Sherman asked Pelosi, “You’ve been in Congress a little bit, and you’re in leadership. Have you ever met with the Russian ambassador?”
“Not with this Russian ambassador, no,” Pelosi responded after a long pause.
Pelosi herself has had contact with key Russian officials while serving in Congress. In 2007, Pelosi, then-Speaker of the House of Representatives, held a hearing with Russian officials during which Konstantin I. Kosachev, who was at the time the Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, presented Pelosi with a gift.
During that hearing, Pelosi expressed her desire to go to Russia and vist the Duma in Russia. Then she shook hands with members of the Russian deligation and exchanged gifts with Kosachev. In 2017, Kosachev said that “Russophobia” was a pandemic in Donald Trump’s administration.
Additionally, in 2008, Pelosi attend Group of Eight (G8) meeting in Hiroshima, Japan where she posed for a picture with Boris Gryzlov of Russia, who at the time was the Speaker of Russia’s State Duma.