{"id":50285,"date":"2017-11-03T05:59:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T05:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=50285"},"modified":"2017-11-03T05:59:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T05:59:56","slug":"trump-sessions-denied-knowing-russian-contacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/trump-sessions-denied-knowing-russian-contacts.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Sessions Denied Knowing About Russian Contacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump and Sessions Denied Knowing About Russian Contacts<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Trump and Sessions Denied Knowing About Russian Contacts:- Standing before reporters in February, President Trump said unequivocally that he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told the Senate the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Court documents unsealed this week cast doubt on both statements and raised the possibility that Mr. Sessions could be called back to Congress for further questioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, unsealed his first charges Monday in a wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to disrupt the presidential election and whether anyone close to Mr. Trump was involved. Records in that case show that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser, had frequent discussions with Russians in 2016 and trumpeted his connections in front of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions.<\/span><\/p>\n

For months, journalists have revealed evidence that associates of Mr. Trump met with Russians during the campaign and the presidential transition. But the court documents represent the first concrete evidence that Mr. Trump was personally told about ties between a campaign adviser and Russian officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a March 31, 2016, meeting between Mr. Trump and his foreign policy team, Mr. Papadopoulos introduced himself and said \u201cthat he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,\u201d according to court records.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe went into the pitch right away,\u201d said J. D. Gordon, a campaign adviser who attended the meeting. \u201cHe said he had a friend in London, the Russian ambassador, who could help set up a meeting with Putin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump listened with interest. Mr. Sessions vehemently opposed the idea, Mr. Gordon recalled. \u201cAnd he said that no one should talk about it,\u201d because Mr. Sessions thought it was a bad idea that he did not want associated with the campaign, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several of Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign advisers attended the March 2016 meeting, and at least two of those advisers are now in the White House: Hope Hicks, the communications director, and Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Mr. Trump was sworn in, he could not escape questions about Russia. At a Feb. 16, 2017, White House news conference, a reporter asked Mr. Trump, \u201cCan you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had contacts with Russia during the course of the election?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cNobody that I know of. Nobody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The White House has sought to portray Mr. Papadopoulos as an insignificant figure in the campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer dealing with matters related to Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigation, said the White House stood behind the president\u2019s comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe media\u2019s willingness to inflate Papadopoulos, a young unpaid volunteer and supposed energy expert, into an important thought leader in the campaign or Russian operative is ludicrous,\u201d Mr. Cobb said. \u201cThe evidence so far suggests he attended one meeting, said something about Russia and was immediately shut down by everyone in the room. It\u2019s very important to remember that he is not a criminal now because of anything he did for the campaign \u2014 he is a criminal because he initially lied to the F.B.I.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another member of the foreign policy team, Carter Page, said on Thursday that he told Mr. Sessions in passing in June 2016 that he planned to travel to Russia for a trip \u201ccompletely unrelated\u201d to his volunteer role in the campaign. \u201cUnderstandably, it was as irrelevant then as it is now,\u201d Mr. Page said. Mr. Page traveled twice to Russia in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Democrats in the Senate said on Thursday that they would push to have Mr. Sessions return to the Judiciary Committee for further questioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe now needs to come back before the committee, in person, under oath, to explain why he cannot seem to provide truthful, complete answers to these important and relevant questions,\u201d said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who is on the Judiciary Committee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat on the committee, pointed out that Mr. Sessions\u2019s testimony was under oath and \u201cwasn\u2019t just some random comment he made in passing on the street.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Sessions faced similar questions in January before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, asked him about contacts between the campaign and Russia. \u201cI\u2019m not aware of any of those activities,\u201d Mr. Sessions said. He denied having any such contacts himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Democrats condemned those remarks as misleading when it was revealed that Mr. Sessions held meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. Last month, Mr. Franken renewed his questioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t believe that surrogates from the Trump campaign had communications with the Russians?\u201d he asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did not, and I\u2019m not aware of anyone else that did,\u201d Mr. Sessions replied. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t believe it happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He did not make any reference to Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Sessions has said he answered honestly because he was being questioned in the context of Russian officials continuously exchanging information with campaign advisers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Gordon said that while the March 2016 meeting technically contradicted Mr. Sessions\u2019s testimony, he defended the attorney general.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something he heard way back in March from some young man who was not authorized to speak for the campaign,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t blame Senator Sessions for not remembering that.\u201d He said that only in the political \u201cgotcha game\u201d could the matter be considered significant.<\/span><\/p>\n

The court documents in the Papadopoulos case represent the most explicit evidence yet that Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign was eager to coordinate with Russian officials to undermine his rival, Hillary Clinton. Federal investigators suspected that Russian intelligence services used intermediaries to contact Mr. Papadopoulos to gain influence with the campaign, offering \u201cdirt\u201d on Mrs. Clinton in the form of \u201cthousands of emails.\u201d Mr. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying about those contacts and is cooperating with the F.B.I.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, as news of Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019s Russian ties continued to ripple through Washington, Mr. Franken sent a stern letter to Mr. Sessions. \u201cThis is another example in an alarming pattern in which you, the nation\u2019s top law enforcement official, apparently failed to tell the truth, under oath,\u201d he wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

The case against Mr. Papadopoulos was unsealed at the same time as an unrelated indictment against two other former campaign advisers, Paul J. Manafort and Rick Gates. Taken together, the three charges sent a foreboding message to a fourth adviser to Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign, Michael T. Flynn.<\/span><\/p>\n

White House officials and others in the case are bracing for charges against Mr. Flynn, a retired three-star general who had a short and tumultuous tenure as national security adviser. Mr. Mueller is investigating Mr. Flynn for not disclosing his Russian contacts or his foreign lobbying work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Manafort was indicted on seldom-used charges of concealing foreign lobbying, as well as for lying on federal documents \u2014 the same activities for which Mr. Flynn is being investigated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bad sign,\u201d said Paul Krieger, who until recently was the top federal fraud prosecutor in Manhattan. \u201cIt shows that the special counsel\u2019s office will not hesitate to charge individuals connected to the administration or campaign with obstruction-like offenses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn, one of the architects of Mr. Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d foreign policy, did not disclose payments from Russia-linked entities on financial disclosure documents. He did not mention a paid speech he gave in Moscow, and he belatedly disclosed, after leaving the White House, that the Turkish government had paid him more than $500,000 for lobbying services.<\/span><\/p>\n

Charging people for not disclosing their foreign lobbying is extremely rare, a point that Mr. Manafort\u2019s lawyers made in documents filed in court on Thursday. Since 1966, his lawyers wrote, only six such cases have been filed and only one person has been convicted. Such violations are typically handled administratively.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is far from clear what activity triggers a requirement to file a report as a foreign agent,\u201d said Kevin M. Downing, Mr. Manafort\u2019s lawyer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates appeared in court briefly on Thursday. Lawyers discussed the conditions of their house arrest and the possibility of a trial in April.<\/span><\/p>\n

White House officials have long been anticipating the indictments of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn, and have tried to distance themselves from both men. They were caught by surprise, however, by Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019s guilty plea and the fact that he had been cooperating with the F.B.I. since July.<\/span><\/p>\n

That cooperation agreement fueled speculation that Mr. Papadopoulos had secretly recorded his conversations with White House officials this summer. But Mr. Cobb said he had seen no evidence that Mr. Papadopoulos had visited the White House or had recent conversations with staff members.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no indication that this George Papadopoulos came to this White House,\u201d Mr. Cobb said, adding that a different person with the same name had entered the White House this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Court documents do not explain the extent of Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019s cooperation with Mr. Mueller\u2019s investigation, but prosecutors said they showed him emails, chat transcripts, text messages and other records \u201cin an attempt to refresh his recollection\u201d about his contacts with Russians and with members of the Trump campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/11\/02\/us\/politics\/trump-jeff-sessions-russia.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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