Reading News for You: Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians
Thursday, May 18, 2017
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| FILE PHOTO: - U.S. President Donald Trump (L-R), joined by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, senior advisor Steve Bannon, Communications Director Sean Spicer and then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. on January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo |
VietPress USA (May 18th, 2017): More and more clearly that Trump's presidential campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russian Government Organizations. Please read this exclusive news from Reuters on Yahoo News at:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-trump-campaign-had-least-18-undisclosed-contacts-090326186.html
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Exclusive: Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed
contacts with Russians: sources Reuters
By Ned Parker, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel
Reuters May 18, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michael Flynn and other advisers to
Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with
Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the
2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the
exchanges told Reuters.
The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the
record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing
Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between
Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to
Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the
United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national
security adviser, three current and former officials said.
Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after
the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for
communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could
bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered
hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.
In January, the Trump White House initially denied any
contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. The White House and
advisers to the campaign have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and
Trump advisers during that time.
The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they
had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia
in the communications reviewed so far. But the disclosure could increase the
pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full
account of interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the
Kremlin during and immediately after the 2016 election.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Flynn's lawyer declined to comment. In Moscow, a Russian foreign ministry
official declined to comment on the contacts and referred Reuters to the Trump
administration.
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FILE PHOTO A television plays a news report on U.S. President Donald Trump's recent Oval Office meeting with Russia's Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak as night falls on offices and the entrance of the West Wing White House in Washington |
Separately, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in
Washington said: “We do not comment on our daily contacts with the local
interlocutors.”
The 18 calls and electronic messages took place between
April and November 2016 as hackers engaged in what U.S. intelligence concluded
in January was part of a Kremlin campaign to discredit the vote and influence
the outcome of the election in favor of Trump over his Democratic challenger,
former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Those discussions focused on mending U.S.-Russian economic
relations strained by sanctions imposed on Moscow, cooperating in fighting
Islamic State in Syria and containing a more assertive China, the sources said.
Members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have
gone to the CIA and the National Security Agency to review transcripts and
other documents related to contacts between Trump campaign advisers and
associates and Russian officials and others with links to Putin, people with
knowledge of those investigations told Reuters.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had
appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate
alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential campaign and possible
collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Mueller will now take charge of
the FBI investigation that began last July. Trump and his aides have repeatedly
denied any collusion with Russia.
'IT'S RARE'
In addition to the six phone calls involving Kislyak, the
communications described to Reuters involved another 12 calls, emails or text
messages between Russian officials or people considered to be close to Putin
and Trump campaign advisers.
One of those contacts was by Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian
oligarch and politician, according to one person with detailed knowledge of the
exchange and two others familiar with the issue.
It was not clear with whom Medvedchuk was in contact within
the Trump campaign but the themes included U.S.-Russia cooperation, the sources
said. Putin is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Medvedchuk denied having any contact with anyone in the
Trump campaign.
"I am not acquainted with any of Donald Trump's close
associates, therefore no such conversation could have taken place," he
said in an email to Reuters.
In the conversations during the campaign, Russian officials
emphasized a pragmatic, business-style approach and stressed to Trump
associates that they could make deals by focusing on common economic and other
interests and leaving contentious issues aside, the sources said.
Veterans of previous election campaigns said some contact
with foreign officials during a campaign was not unusual, but the number of
interactions between Trump aides and Russian officials and others with links to
Putin was exceptional.
“It’s rare to have that many phone calls to foreign
officials, especially to a country we consider an adversary or a hostile
power,” Richard Armitage, a Republican and former deputy secretary of state,
told Reuters.
FLYNN FIRED
Beyond Medvedchuk and Kislyak, the identities of the other
Putin-linked participants in the contacts remain classified and the names of
Trump advisers other than Flynn have been “masked” in intelligence reports on
the contacts because of legal protections on their privacy as American
citizens. However, officials can request that they be revealed for intelligence
purposes.
U.S. and allied intelligence and law enforcement agencies
routinely monitor communications and movements of Russian officials.
After Vice President Mike Pence and others had denied in
January that Trump campaign representatives had any contact with Russian
officials, the White House later confirmed that Kislyak had met twice with
then-Senator Jeff Sessions, who later became attorney general.
Kislyak also attended an event in April where Trump said he
would seek better relations with Russia. Senior White House adviser Jared
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, also attended that event in Washington. In
addition, Kislyak met with two other Trump campaign advisers in July on the sidelines
of the Republican convention.
Trump fired Flynn in February after it became clear that he
had falsely characterized the nature of phone conversations with Kislyak in
late December - after the Nov. 8 election and just after the Obama
administration announced new sanctions on Russia. Flynn offered to testify to
Congress in return for immunity from prosecution but his offer was turned down
by the House intelligence committee.
(Additional reporting by John Walcott in Washington, Natalia
Zinets and Alessandra Prentice in Kiev and Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by
Kevin Krolicki and Ross Colvin)
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