President Donald Trump’s former Iowa campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis – currently awaiting a confirmation hearing for a senior U.S. Department of Agriculture post – is one of the witnesses identified by special counsel Robert Mueller that urged Trump adviser George Papadopoulos to meet with Russian officials, multiple media outlets are reporting.
According to a report by Iowa Public Radio, Clovis is the Trump “campaign supervisor” mentioned in court documents released Monday by the special counsel. Clovis, a former conservative talk show host from Hinton, Iowa, has a confirmation hearing scheduled for Nov. 9 for the job of undersecretary for research, education and economics in the USDA.
On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa urged Clovis to continue cooperating with Mueller and his investigatory team. Calls for Clovis to withdraw from consideration at the USDA are premature at this time, Grassley said, adding that “one thing that would make a big difference to me is the extent to which Sam Clovis is committed to cooperating with the special counsel.”
According to the Des Moines Register, Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts said that Clovis has been “a fully cooperative witness” in the Senate Intelligence committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
