Thune: Meeting with Romney aides was not about VP vetting

ByABC News
July 16, 2012, 11:54 AM

— -- The Hill  reported Monday that South Dakota Sen. John Thune met with Mitt Romney campaign aides in Boston, including Beth Myers, who is in charge of the vetting process for the vice presidential slot. The full transcript of the interview, however, suggests that the meetings were not recent and were not connected to the selection of a running mate.

"I met her but it wasn't a meeting about what you think it's about," Thune told The Hill when asked about Myers, according to a transcript of the interview provided to Yahoo News by Thune aides. The quote did not appear in the original Hill story, which merely reported that the meeting with Myers occurred.

See the full transcript, which provides added context to the original story, here:

Q: Have you met with his campaign team and gone up to Boston or anything like that?

Thune : Not recently but I've been to Boston and met with members of his campaign team, of course they were all out in Utah at Park City a few weekends ago when we were up there.

Q: And you also been to Boston and met with the campaign?

Thune: Yeah, but it's been a while back.

Q: Have you met with Beth Myers?

Thune: I met her but it wasn't a meeting about what you think it's about.

Q: Are you being vetted?

Thune: Well, I think the question on that — the way we've always answered it, tried to answer that, is that the campaign that's a question for them to answer, they've got a process in place, we're respectful of that. At some point they're going to make a decision in the selection and I believe they'll make a good one. There are a lot of people that are being talked about that I'm big fans of and I think they'll be great choices.