Tag: Trump campaign

Senate panel to question Jared Kushner over meetings with Russians

The following article by Jo Becker, Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman was posted on the New York Times website March 27, 2017:

Senate investigators plan to question Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a close adviser, as part of their broad inquiry into ties between Trump associates and Russian officials or others linked to the Kremlin, according to administration and congressional officials.

The White House Counsel’s Office was informed this month that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, wanted to question Mr. Kushner about meetings he arranged with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, according to the government officials. The meetings, which took place during the transition, included a previously unreported sit-down with the head of Russia’s state-owned development bank. Continue reading “Senate panel to question Jared Kushner over meetings with Russians”

CNN: Officials Have Evidence That Trump Associates ‘Coordinated With Russians’

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website March 23, 2017:

Donald Trump’s campaign chair and convention manager Paul Manafort appears at a press conference at the Republican Convention in Cleveland, July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

On Wednesday, CNN reported what many of us who closely follow the Russian hacking scandal have expected for months: The FBI has evidence of contacts between unnamed “associates of Donald Trump” and “suspected Russian operatives” during last year’s presidential election — and possibly coordinated with Russians to attack the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Coming two days after FBI director James Comey confirmed that his agency has been investigating the Trump campaign’s connections with Russian interference in the election since July 2016, the CNN report is stunning but not surprising. It also follows an Associated Press report on Tuesday that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chair, had secretly devised a plan as early as 2005 to “greatly aid” the Putin regime by influencing the U .S. government and media. (Evidence that he pursued precisely such a campaign can be found in this 2008 Nationarticle by Mark Ames and Ari Berman, detailing efforts by Manafort and his partner Rick Davis to promote pro-Russian positions and policies with Arizona Senator and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain.) Continue reading “CNN: Officials Have Evidence That Trump Associates ‘Coordinated With Russians’”

Fresh evidence Trump’s Russia headaches are not going away

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website March 24, 2017:

THE BIG IDEA: The drip, drip, drip of damaging Russia revelations continues, as White House efforts to change the narrative backfire.

— CNN reported late last night that the FBI has information that indicates associates of Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Clinton’s campaign: “This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. … The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings.” Three nuggets from the CNN report: Continue reading “Fresh evidence Trump’s Russia headaches are not going away”

New documents show Trump aide laundered payments from party with Moscow ties, lawmaker alleges

The following article by Andrew Roth was posted on the Washington Post website March 21, 2017:

KIEV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian lawmaker released new financial documents Tuesday allegedly showing that a former campaign chairman for President Trump laundered payments from the party of a disgraced ex-leader of Ukraine using offshore accounts in Belize and Kyrgyzstan.

The new documents, if legitimate, stem from business ties between the Trump aide, Paul Manafort, and the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who enjoyed Moscow’s backing while he was in power. He has been in hiding in Russia since being overthrown by pro-Western protesters in 2014, and is wanted in Ukraine on corruption charges. Continue reading “New documents show Trump aide laundered payments from party with Moscow ties, lawmaker alleges”

Under Trump, ‘permanent campaign’ takes on a whole new meaning

The following article by James Pindell was posted on the Boston Globe website March 16, 2017:

Pres. Trump at Nashville Rally March, 2017 ANDREA MORALES/GETTY IMAGE

Consider it another way that Donald Trump has changed American politics: The once-subtle art of the so-called permanent campaign practiced by the past six US presidents is dead. There is nothing subtle about the ways Trump has campaigned since winning the White House in November. He never stopped campaigning, never stopped raising money, and never stopped attacking his opponents.

Where his predecessors tried to walk a careful line, suggesting that the presidency was above politics, Trump might be the one finally calling a spade a spade.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama didn’t file paperwork to run for reelection until April and May of their third year in office. Trump filed the day he was sworn in. Neither Bush nor Obama aired television ads until the election year. Trump’s super PAC has already aired a few of them. And this week, as if there was any doubt what Trump was up to, his supporters could sign up to attend what are officially called campaign rallies in Tennessee and Kentucky via Trump’s campaign website. Continue reading “Under Trump, ‘permanent campaign’ takes on a whole new meaning”

Did The Trump Organization Make A Deal With An Oligarch Linked To Iran?

The following article by Jack Moore was written for Newsweek and posted on the National Memo website March 7, 2017:

President of the United States Donald J. Trump at CPAC 2017 February 24th 2017. Michael Vadon /Flickr

Donald Trump has styled himself as a hardline opponent of the Iranian regime, but new details of a business deal in Azerbaijan point to his organization’s relationship with an oligarch’s family that has close links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

A New Yorker feature alleges that indirect ties between Trump’s business interests and the Iranian regime, which he is currently railing against in office, may have been closer than previously believed before he ascended to the presidency.

It reports that the Trump Organization, the business that Trump handed to his sons when he was inaugurated in January, had conducted business with the Mammadov family, specifically “close relatives of Ziya Mammadov,” the Transport Minister of Azerbaijan. Continue reading “Did The Trump Organization Make A Deal With An Oligarch Linked To Iran?”