Tag: Russian Ambassador

Ex-Russian Ambassador: List of Trump Contacts ‘So Long’ I Can’t Name Them All

The following article was posted on the Daily Beast website November 16, 2017:

CREDIT: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS

Former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak has said it would take him more than 20 minutes to list all the Trump officials he’s had contact with because the “list is so long.” In an interview aired on Russia’s state-run Channel One television station Thursday, Kislyak dismissed accusations of Russian election meddling as “nonsense” concocted by President Trump’s opponents but acknowledged that he’d had extensive contact with members of Trump’s administration. The list of contacts is “so long,” he said, “that I’m not going to be able to go through it in 20 minutes.” Kislyak, who has been a central figure in the U.S. investigation into the Kremlin’s alleged election interference, declined to give further details on what was discussed with Trump officials but said it was all part of normal diplomatic discourse. Kislyak was recalled as Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. in June. His comments came just a few days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was grilled by the House Judiciary Committee on his interactions with the Russian ambassador.

Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t.

The following article by Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website July 22, 2017:

The accounts from Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to his superiors, intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, contradict public assertions by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Post’s Greg Miller explains. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

As members of the Trump campaign team defend themselves from questions about contact with Russians, a common explanation has been: 1) It’s normal to meet with foreign officials and 2) We forgot about those meetings, because they were so normal.

To which former U.S. intelligence officials and security experts say: Those meetings are not normal, at least not in this extraordinary moment. Continue reading “Sometimes it’s ‘normal’ to meet with foreign officials. For Jeff Sessions and the Russian ambassador, it wasn’t.”