
In his opening statement, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes said that Democrats had tried “to obtain nude pictures of Trump from Russian pranksters who pretended to be Ukrainian officials.”
Facts First: This is misleading. While committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff did take a 2017 call from Russian pranksters who posed as a Ukrainian government official and purported to know of “compromising” nude photos taken of Trump during a visit to Moscow in 2013, Schiff emphasized to the pranksters that he would work with the FBI, not on his own, to receive any related evidence the pranksters could provide.
The pranksters claimed to have recordings of Russians discussing the supposed compromising material. Schiff said he would welcome an opportunity to obtain copies of the recordings (not the photos themselves) -- and emphasized that he would work with law enforcement to do so.“We will try to work with the FBI to figure out, along with your staff, how we can obtain copies,” Schiff said of the recordings, as The Atlantic reported.
Schiff continued moments later: “I'll be in touch with the FBI about this.”A Schiff spokesman told The Atlantic: “Before agreeing to take the call, and immediately following it, the committee informed appropriate law-enforcement and security personnel of the conversation, and of our belief that it was probably bogus.”