Steve Neavling

Members of Congress who travelled to Russia to investigate whether the FBI could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings have mixed feelings about the bureau’s response, The Hill reports.

Russian security officials told the lawmakers that the FBI never responded to a letter warning about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the bombing suspects. The FBI counters that it did respond but couldn’t get Russia to provide additional information, the Hill wrote.

“What could have stopped this is not something within the context of our current [U.S.-Russia] framework. But we need to change the overall relationship and that could have thwarted this attack, I have no doubt,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., told The Hill.

But Steve King, R-Iowa, isn’t as confident.

“[Russia] wanted to help,” King told the Hill. “And they got the message by implication that the FBI was not interested in examining Tamerlan.”