The last 48 hours have seen such a massive unraveling of major news about President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia that we, quite frankly, didn’t know where to start. You may not either. So here’s roundup of major things that broke.
First, regarding that meeting between Attorney General Jeff Sessions (then United States Senator and part of Trump’s inner circle) and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak…
#Sessions met w/ Kislyak for the 2nd time on Sept. 8. I did a LexisNexis search to see what was going on at that time. Here we go… 1/
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
Three days before #Sessions met w/Kislyak in September, Obama met w/Putin at the G20 summit. .. 2/ pic.twitter.com/AQ8fyTOOZm
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
At the G20 summit, Obama & Putin discussed sanctions that US imposed on Sept 1, which Putin said were inconsistent w/future cooperation. 3/ pic.twitter.com/OaMMcm7XzB
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
On Sept 7, Dir. of National Intelligence James Clapper publicly suggested for the first time that Russia was behind the DNC hack. 4/ pic.twitter.com/WvWKxWz9aP
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
Then, on Sept. 8 – the day of the #Sessions/Kislyak meeting – Trump told a Russian TV network he didn't think Russia was behind the hack. 5/ pic.twitter.com/g996VI49St
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
The same day (9/8) that #Sessions met w/Kislyak, Trump suggested it would be "wonderful" if we had a relationship with Russia… 6/ pic.twitter.com/R0GskieqZ2
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
Also on the same day (9/8) that #Sessions met w/Kislyak, both Trump AND Pence heaped praise on Putin & his leadership style. 7/ pic.twitter.com/lmL8ZpfXY9
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
And (here it is), on the same day that #Sessions met w/Kislyak, Russia suddenly became optimistic about building good relations w/the US, 8/ pic.twitter.com/wGClxKeFix
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 2, 2017
Things aren’t looking good for Sessions’ political future.
In addition to the Russia news, it was revealed that Sessions used his own campaign travel account for his trip to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, according to The Wall Street Journal — which is where he spoke to Kislyak.
But there may be larger problems. Many of his fellow Republicans are starting to abandon him. Though they aren’t following the Democratic drumbeat calling for Sessions’ resignation, a number of Congressional Republicans are agreeing that he needed to recuse himself from any investigation into Russia (which Sessions has subsequently done). Sessions may find himself without his party’s safety net — something the GOP has so far been willing to provide the Trump administration.
Another aide has admitted that then-candidate Trump insisted on removing an anti-Russia plank from the Republican platform.
J. D. Gordon, who represented the Trump campaign on national security issues at the Republican National Convention last year, admitted to CNN on Thursday that he scrubbed a plank from the party platform that opposed Russia’s attempts to gain influence in the Ukraine — and did so explicitly on Trump’s behalf.
Gordon had previously denied having any role in replacing the plank’s call for “providing lethal defense weapons” to Ukrainians resisting pro-Russia rebels with merely giving them “appropriate assistance.” That plank was pretty much the only thing in the entire party platform that the Trump campaign actually cared about at all. Although they initially denied having anything to do with it, Gordon admitted to Jim Acosta that Trump insisted on changing the language because “he didn’t want to go to ‘World War III’ over Ukraine.”
Carter Page is joining the list of Trump associates who could be linked to Kislyak.
Sessions and former national security adviser Michael Flynn aren’t the only ones to have contacted Kislyak despite initially claiming otherwise. Trump aide Carter Page is now admitting that he met with the Russian ambassador, adding: “I will say I never met him anywhere outside of Cleveland. Let’s just say that much.”
Earlier this month, Page characterized reports that he had served as an intermediary between Trump and the Russian government as “human rights abuses” and “hate crimes” committed by the “Clinton regime.” This wasn’t in an interview, either — he said these things in a letter to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section.
Watch @chrislhayes pin down Carter Page into this 💯 A+ answer: “I will say that I never met [Sergey Kislyak] anywhere outside of Cleveland.” pic.twitter.com/L6Mqa3NnpS
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 3, 2017
