North Coast Reps. Mike Thompson, Jared Huffman decry Trump’s embrace of Putin

President Donald Trump’s renouncement of his own intelligence agencies and embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin drew strong condemnation from the North Coast’s congressional lawmakers.

Trump on Monday openly questioned his own intelligence agencies’ finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to his benefit, seeming to accept Putin’s insistence that Moscow’s hands were clean.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, issued a statement describing intelligence community members as “some of our finest and most devoted public servants.”

“It is downright shameful that the President would publicly berate their work while standing next to an adversary who deliberately interfered in our elections,” he said in the statement. “The President had an opportunity to stand up for our values as a nation and he failed miserably. He should realize that Putin is not our friend and stand with our nation and government … in denouncing Putin and implementing critical security measures to protect the independence of our next election.”

Thompson, who served for eight years on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said “the stakes are too high to stand side by side with our nation’s adversary.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said in a statement Trump had “missed yet another chance to get tough on Russia.”

Huffman’s office announced he had introduced new legislation that would authorize sanctions on people and companies involved with the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. Trump had criticized the project, which would funnel natural gas from Russia to northern Germany, but he softened his tone after meeting with Putin.

“After meeting with Putin, our Commander in Chief now can’t bring himself to do anything to hold Russia accountable, nor to uphold his own administration’s position that this pipeline is not in the American interest,” said Huffman.

Huffman said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will leave Europe vulnerable to Putin’s energy supply manipulations, allowing him to further exert influence over Ukraine by reducing the flow of gas through Ukraine without affecting Western Europe.

His bill would impose economic sanctions if Russian gas flows through Ukraine drop below 75 percent of the previous three-year average. He described his legislation as an intent to “let Congress force the issue.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.