REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
CNN reported on Wednesday that ex-President Obama’s former national-security adviser Susan Rice has declined Sen. Lindsey Graham’s invitation for her to participate in a judiciary subcommittee hearing on Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election. According to a letter from Rice’s lawyer, obtained by the cable-news network, the former Obama adviser opted to skip the hearing—after initially wanting to accept—because her team was informed that Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Graham’s colleague atop the powerful committee, had not agreed to the invitation. Whitehouse’s lack of consent to the decision constituted “a significant departure from the bipartisan invitations extended to other witnesses,” the lawyer explained. “Under these circumstances, Ambassador Rice respectfully declines Senator Graham's invitation to testify.”