CIA Director Mike Pompeo met with his Russian counterparts when they visited the United States last week, including the the chief of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, who is included on a list of sanctioned Russian officials sanctioned by the U.S., CBS News reported Tuesday night.
Russian media also reported that Naryshkin and Pompeo met in the U.S. last week, and the Russian embassy in the U.S. appeared to confirm the meeting in a tweet.
The director of Russia’s foreign intelligence, Sergey Naryshkin, has visited the United States for consultations with #US?? counterparts on the struggle against terrorism – Ambassador #Antonov
➡️https://t.co/WPeQwBMrVJ pic.twitter.com/NKl5oUaHVh— Russia in USA ?? (@RusEmbUSA) January 30, 2018
Jon Huntsman, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, told a Russia radio station on Tuesday that Pompeo met with his Russian counterparts, but Huntsman did not say exactly who attended the meeting.
The meeting took place in the same week that Pompeo told the BBC that he expects Russia to try to interfere in the 2018 U.S. elections.
“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that,” Pompeo said in an interview that aired Monday. “But I am confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election, that we’ll push back in a way that is sufficiently robust, that the impact that they will have on our election won’t be great.”
