Adam Schiff isn’t going quiet any time soon — no matter what his Republican colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee might want.
The California Democrat has been a pervasive presence on cable news networks during the panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election. He has claimed “clear evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and last week issued a Twitter screed calling President Trump “the worst president in modern history.”
Schiff’s rising profile hasn’t escaped the notice of the president.“Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into ‘Russia,’ spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!” Trump tweeted over the summer. Continue reading “Dems find an unlikely attack dog on Russia”
The following article by Meg Kelly was posted on the Washington Post website November 13, 2017:
The Trump campaign and the White House have said there was no contact between anyone on their staff and Russia. This isn’t true. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
“You know you can talk all you want about Russia, which is all a you know, fake news fabricated deal to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats.” — President Trump, in a news conference, Feb. 2, 2017
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III filed the first charges in his investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Oct. 30. Mueller brought charges against three former Trump campaign officials — Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos. Manafort and Gates have both pleaded not guilty. Papadopoulos accepted a plea bargain, which detailed extensive contact between himself and various individuals claiming they had connections to the Kremlin. Continue reading “All the known times the Trump campaign met with Russians”
The following article by Mark Hosenball and John Walcott was posted on the Reuters website November 10, 2017:
Credit: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has questioned Sam Clovis, co-chairman of President Donald Trump’s election campaign, to determine if Trump or top aides knew of the extent of the campaign team’s contacts with Russia, two sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday.
The focus of the questions put to Clovis by Mueller’s team has not been previously reported.
“The ultimate question Mueller is after is whether candidate Trump and then President-elect Trump knew of the discussions going on with Russia, and who approved or even directed them,” said one source. “That is still just a question.”
Clovis testified in late October before the grand jury in Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He is also cooperating with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating the same issues.
Contacted late on Friday, the White House declined to comment.
One of the sources described Clovis as “another domino” after former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI over his own contacts with Russians during the 2016 election campaign.
“The investigators now know what Papadopoulos was doing on the Russian front, which he initially tried to conceal, and who he told that to,” said the other source. “Now [they] want to know whether Clovis and others reported these activities and others related to Russia, and if so, to whom,” this source said.
Attorneys for Clovis did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Papadopoulos had no immediate comment.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment.
According to court documents related to Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, he reported to Clovis in an email on a March 24, 2016, meeting he had in London with a professor later identified as Joseph Mifsud.
Mifsud in turn introduced him to a Russian woman and the Russian ambassador in London, and they discussed setting up meetings to talk about U.S.-Russia ties in a Trump presidency.
The documents showed Clovis responded to the proposed meetings by saying he would “work it through the campaign.” While he told Papadopoulos not to make a commitment then to set up those meetings, he congratulated him for “great work.”
In August 2016, after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos to “make the trip” when Papadopoulos proposed going to an off-the-record meeting with unnamed Russian officials, the court documents show.
Victoria Toensing, one of Clovis’s lawyers, said last week her client “always vigorously opposed any Russian trip for Donald Trump and/or the campaign”.
After Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, the White House and former Trump campaign officials dismissed Papadopoulos and Clovis as minor figures in the campaign.
The campaign’s National Security Advisory Committee, which Clovis formed, has become a focus of the investigations by both Mueller and the Senate, sources said.
“Sam built the first group of eight,” J.D. Gordon, the director of the campaign foreign policy group, told Reuters, adding that he and then-Senator Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. Attorney General, had “nearly doubled” it in size.
However, two other sources familiar with the investigations said investigators have been told the committee Clovis formed did very little, and that other advisers appeared to carry more weight with Trump.
The following article by Eric Lutz was posted on the mic.com website November 11, 2017:
Stephen Miller — a top aide to President Donald Trump — was reportedly in regular contact with George Papadopoulos, contradicting the White House characterization of the former foreign policy adviser as having played an “extremely limited” role on the campaign.
The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website November 9, 2017:
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller has been interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian influence over the 2016 election, CNN reported Thursday.
WASHINGTON — A congressional committee investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election released a transcript late Monday of a seven-hour interview lawmakers conducted last week behind closed doors with Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.
Some details from the interview were previously known, including the fact that Mr. Page traveled to Russia in summer 2016, when he was part of the campaign.
The House Intelligence Committee on Monday night released more than 200 pages of transcripts from its marathon interview of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, sprawling testimony that contained new details about the closely-scrutinized foreign policy aide’s relationship to Moscow.
Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to President Trump’s campaign, told House investigators that he informed Attorney General Jeff Sessions about his trip to Russia during the campaign, according to a new report.
CNN reports that Page testified that he told Sessions, then an Alabama senator and Trump campaign adviser, about his trip to Russia, which happened in July 2016.
The following article by Natasha Geiling was posted on the ThinkProgress website October 31, 2017:
Sam Clovis, who emailed with George Papadopoulos about Russia, is going before the Senate on November 9.
Sam Clovis Credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP
Sam Clovis, one of the Trump administration’s more controversial nominees for a political appointment, was already raising eyebrows ahead of his November 9 confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee. To start, Clovis — who has been nominated to the position of undersecretary of research, education, and economics at the United States Department of Agriculture, the agency’s top science position — has no background in the the hard sciences, nor any experience with agricultural or nutritional science. Clovis is also a staunch climate science denier who accused President Barack Obama of “race baiting” and has called progressives “the real racists.”
But on Monday, Clovis’ nomination took on new meaning when it was revealed that, while working as national co-chairman of the Trump campaign, he had encouraged George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy adviser, to meet with Russian nationals in a potential effort to bolster the campaign. On Monday, unsealed court documents revealed that Papadopoulos had plead guilty to lying to federal agents about his communication with Russia. Continue reading “Climate-denying talk radio host Trump picked for top science post now at center of Russia scandal”
The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger was posted on the Washington Post website October 30, 2017:
When President Trump met with The Washington Post editorial board he listed the members of his foreign policy team, calling Papadopoulos “an excellent guy.” (The Washington Post)
Several weeks after Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination, his national campaign co-chairman urged a foreign policy adviser to meet with Russian officials to foster ties with that country’s government.
