Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians

Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The ceremony occurred in the Blue Room of the White House, where many senior law enforcement officials — including the Secret Service director — had gathered. Mr. Comey — who is 6 feet 8 inches tall and was wearing a dark blue suit that day – told Mr. Wittes that he tried to blend in with the blue curtains in the back of the room, in the hopes that Mr. Trump would not spot him and call him out.

“He thought he had gotten through and not been noticed or singled out and that he was going to get away without an individual interaction,” Mr. Wittes said Mr. Comey told him.

But Mr. Trump spotted Mr. Comey and called him out.

“Oh and there’s Jim,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s become more famous than me.”

With an abashed look on his face, Mr. Comey walked up to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Wittes told Mr. Comey he was encouraged by the fact that the Senate was likely to confirm Rod J. Rosenstein, a longtime federal prosecutor, as the deputy attorney general.

To Mr. Wittes’s surprise, Mr. Comey did not completely agree with him.

“He said, ‘I don’t know. I have some concerns. He’s good, he’s solid but he’s also a survivor and you don’t survive that long without making some compromises and I’m concerned about that.’”

Weeks after his confirmation, Mr. Rosenstein wrote a memo that Mr. Trump initially cited as the justification for firing Mr. Comey.

willhud9 wrote:Seth Meyers details a bunch of campaign videos where Trump and subsequent Trump supporters rallied against Clinton's email "scandal" to the point of obnoxiousness, and yet are mute when Trump willfully discloses classified information.

Classified information is classified information. If I had a security clearance at a government job and I disclosed confidential information to someone not cleared for that information I am not only likely to lose my job and my security clearance but depending on the information I am liable to face legal punishment.

The president of the United States is not above the law.

willhud9 wrote:No. I will not blame the press for doing the press's job. Trump abused the trust of a political ally. You keep saying Trump said this to save lives, but offer no substantial evidence to back that claim up. Furthermore, his administration has consistently attacked the media for reporting stories but offering no substance or proof. Well, the story has substance. We know what Trump was talking about with the Russians. We know he had no business telling the Russians that. If Israel confided with the POTUS their intelligence there is an expectation that the President will honor the trust between the two governments, but when Russia is involved Trump's bias is plain to see.

Miller & Jaffe wrote:At a more fundamental level, the information wasn’t the United States’ to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments — and even individual agencies — are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated, even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington’s inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.

“If that partner learned we’d given this to Russia without their knowledge or asking first, that is a blow to that relationship,” the U.S. official said.

wilhud wrote:The media is doing what the media does: reveal information. If the information was vital and important it would not have made its way to the media it would have stayed confidential. Confidentiality which the POTUS abused. Case closed.

You can't simultaneously claim that the information was released by the media because it was not "vital and important" while claiming that Trump should be impeached because it was.

zulumoose wrote:

You can't simultaneously claim that the information was released by the media because it was not "vital and important" while claiming that Trump should be impeached because it was.

It is not the media who should be held accountable for keeping information released to them secret, the fact that it has been released to them means it is no longer secret, and the people responsible for releasing the information outside the circle it was supposed to be kept within, are the responsible ones.

You're missing the point.

It was the media that trumpeted to the world this info allegedly came from Israel - the thing that supposedly will cut the US off from their intel and might get espionage assets killed

zulumoose wrote:

You're missing the point.

It was the media that trumpeted to the world this info allegedly came from Israel - the thing that supposedly will cut the US off from their intel and might get espionage assets killed

Nope, you are missing the point. Once something has been given to the media, the damage is done. The media are under no obligation to keep anything secret, and are in fact not doing their duty if something newsworthy goes unpublished. To expect them to do otherwise is to accept a state media.

Any political fallout and damage to espionage is on the person who released it to Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, etc. the media

zulumoose wrote:

You can't simultaneously claim that the information was released by the media because it was not "vital and important" while claiming that Trump should be impeached because it was.

It is not the media who should be held accountable for keeping information released to them secret, the fact that it has been released to them means it is no longer secret, and the people responsible for releasing the information outside the circle it was supposed to be kept within, are the responsible ones.

timesunion wrote:Great news: Mexico offers to pay for Trump’s impeachment
satire

Marking a potentially big turnaround in rocky U.S.-Mexico relations, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday offered to pay for President Trump’s impeachment instead of a $21.6 billion border wall separating the two nations.

“We would pay for the ‘whole enchilada,’” Peña Nieto told reporters on the steps of the National Palace in Mexico City. “Impeachment is far cheaper than a border wall, and frankly, no one will want an expensive border wall after Trump’s gone, anyway.”

Budget deficit hawks and even some GOP leaders welcomed Peña Nieto’s offer, which comes amid growing calls for Trump’s impeachment for his part in a series of scandals that has rocked Washington and plunged the White House into chaos.

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