{"id":70806,"date":"2026-04-03T13:55:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/bipartisan-senators-probe-kremlin-linked-delegations-meetings-with-us-officials\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T13:55:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:55:43","slug":"bipartisan-senators-probe-kremlin-linked-delegations-meetings-with-us-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/bipartisan-senators-probe-kremlin-linked-delegations-meetings-with-us-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Bipartisan senators probe Kremlin-linked delegation’s meetings with US officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIRST ON FOX:<\/strong> A bipartisan pair of top-ranking senators want to know why sanctioned Russian officials were in Washington, D.C.,<\/a> and given access to the Capitol and meetings with administration officials as wars in Iran and Ukraine rage on.<\/p>\n

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised counterintelligence concerns<\/a> over the recent visit of a delegation of Russian Duma members, all of whom are sanctioned for “conduct deemed to be harmful to U.S. national security.”<\/p>\n

“The delegation came onto U.S. soil for one purpose: to advance the Kremlin\u2019s strategic aims \u2014 including gathering additional useful intelligence,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.<\/p>\n

TRUMP EYES NEXT ATTORNEY GENERAL AS KEY GOP SENATOR SIGNALS POTENTIAL ROADBLOCK<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“They did not come to engage in dialogue or pursue democratic aims,” they continued.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers argued that Duma members “include Kremlin subordinates who have committed numerous cyber and ransomware attacks on Americans and have facilitated war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.”<\/p>\n

“Remarkably, they are now helping Iran target U.S.<\/a> military and diplomatic personnel across the Middle East,” Wicker and Shaheen wrote.<\/p>\n

SENATE TO QUESTION TRUMP INTEL LEADERS ON IRAN WAR AFTER TOP OFFICIAL QUITS IN PROTEST<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Several members of the Russian Duma visited Washington, D.C., late last month on a trip organized by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. She was joined by Reps. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, for a meeting with the delegation.<\/p>\n

Luna later gave them a tour of the Capitol<\/a> after posing for photos outside the United States Institute of Peace.<\/p>\n

“As representatives of the world\u2019s two greatest nuclear superpowers, we owe our citizens open dialogue, the exchange of ideas, and open lines of communication,” Luna said on X following the meeting. “We will continue to foster this dialogue and push for peace in support of this [administration\u2019s] efforts,<\/a> as well as economic opportunity.”<\/p>\n

GRAHAM SAYS RUSSIA SANCTIONS BILL ‘NEVER GOING BACK ON THE SHELF’ AFTER TRUMP BACKS PUSH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Wicker and Shaheen noted that the Duma members were “far from innocent participants in a cultural exchange.”<\/p>\n

“It included Vyacheslav Nikonov, who in 2023 referred to the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization<\/a> as the \u2018Fourth Reich\u2019 on Russian television. Mikhail Delyagin has advocated for destroying Ukraine\u2019s energy sector. Boris Chernyshov once claimed that Russian retaliatory strikes were \u2018an expression of our hatred [of Ukraine],\u2019” they wrote.<\/p>\n

Wicker and Shaheen demanded that Rubio and Bessent explain why sanctions were waived for the Russian officials\u2019 visit, what meetings the delegation had with Trump administration officials, what counterintelligence assessments were conducted on the visiting Russians, and provide a complete manifest of who traveled from the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers wrote that the delegation\u2019s visit came “at a time when Russia\u2019s intentions are unambiguously clear.”<\/p>\n

“Numerous public reports have cited Russian support for Iran\u2019s military targeting<\/a> of American service members in the Middle East,” they wrote. “European intelligence agencies have reported that Russia intends to attack NATO member states in the coming years. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has made it clear that peace in Ukraine is a mirage. His singular ambition for Ukraine is to erase its existence.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIRST ON FOX: A bipartisan pair of top-ranking senators want to know why sanctioned Russian officials were in Washington, D.C., and given access to the Capitol and meetings with administration officials as wars in Iran and Ukraine rage on. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the top-ranking Democrat … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}