Reagan's Translator 'Outraged' By Calls for Marina Gross to Testify

Calls by top Democrats to have US President Donald Trump’s interpreter Marina Gross grilled in Congress about this week’s summit with Vladimir Putin is unprecedented and outrageous, Ronald Reagan’s former translator told Sputnik.

Senate Democrats want State Department translator Marina Gross to reveal what was discussed in private between Putin and Trump when they met on Monday in the Finnish capital of Helsinki.

"It’s the first time someone wants to call an interpreter to testify before Congress, and I think it is outrageous," Dimitry Zarechnak said in a written comment in Russian.

Zarechnak, who worked with the 66th US president during some of the most crucial times of his term, including the 1986 summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, said no foreign leader would ever agree to talk to a US official for fear of congressional exposure.

The testimony is not a done deal yet. Zarechnak confirmed to Sputnik that the State Department and the White House could invoke executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena that would require Marina Gross to testify.