The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), was tricked by a pair of Russian comedians who offered to give him naked pictures of President Donald Trump that they claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin was using for blackmail.
In an audio recording from last year, Russian comedians nicknamed “Vovan” and “Lexus” contacted Schiff, as they posed as government officials from Ukraine and offered him “compromising” dirt on Trump. The Daily Mail reports:
DailyMail.com can disclose that after the prank, his staff engaged in correspondence with what they thought was a Ukrainian politician to try to obtain the ‘classified’ material promised on the call.
Schiff began the call thanking “chairman Andriy Parubiy,” a made-up person, and warned that the Russians were most likely spying on their phone call.
“I would caution that our Russian friends may be listening to the conversation so I wouldn’t share anything over the phone that you wouldn’t want them to hear,” Schiff said.
After a lengthy conversation, which Schiff appeared to take seriously, he told them that he was reaching out to America’s intelligence community to forward them the information.
“I’ll be in touch with the FBI about this. And we’ll make arrangements with your staff. I think it probably would be best to provide these materials both to our committee and to the FBI,” Schiff said.
A spokesperson for Schiff later claimed that he knew it was a prank phone call and that he immediately “alerted appropriate law enforcement personnel.”
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