After meeting with Russian officials, the head of a congressional delegation said "nothing specific" could have been done to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 200.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., led a six-member delegation that met with members of parliament and security officals,
Politico reports. Rohrabacher called the meetings productive, adding that cooperation is needed between the two countries to fight future threats.
"Radical Islam is at our throat in the United States, and is at the throat of the Russian people," he said.
Some of the meetings were set up by actor Steven Seagal, who is well-connected in Russia. Seagal met with Russian President Vladmir Putin in March and met last week with Ramzan Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya, the Russian province that has fought two wars with Russia since 1994.
The Tsarnaev brothers, who are accused of committing the Boston bombings are ethnic Chechens. The violence has spread into Dagestan, and Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, spent six months there last year.
Seagal, who was at the press conference at the U.S. Embassy, tried to get the congressional delegation into Chechnya to meet with Kadyrov, but House rules wouldn't allow them to fly on his private plane.
Rep. Steven Cohen, D-Iowa, also refused to go because Kadyrov has been accused of torture, kidnapping and murder in his fight against terrorism. Rohrabacher, though, said Putin and Kadyrov should be given a break.
“If you are in the middle of an insurrection with Chechnya, and hundreds of people are being killed and there are terrorist actions taking place and kids are being blown up in schools, yeah, guess what, there are people who overstep the bounds of legality,” he said.
The rule of law is important, he said, but “We shouldn’t be describing people who are under this type of threat, we shouldn’t be describing them as if they are Adolf Hitler or they’re back to the old Communism days.”
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