Russia, Comey won’t go away
TUMULTUOUS TIME IN WHITE HOUSE
New revelations continue to
roil the Donald Trump White House. Among the latest news:
THE TURKEY CONNECTION
Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, is reported to have discussed setting up a back channel for Trump to communicate with Vladimir Putin once he was president. According to another report by McClatchy and The New York Times, Flynn was appointed national security adviser despite him having told the White House he was already under FBI investigation for working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey, receiving over $ 500,000, during the election. Flynn also reportedly blocked a plan drawn up by the Obama administration, and opposed by Turkey, to use Kurdish forces in an operation against Raqqa, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stronghold.
RUSSIA, AGAIN
Flynn and other advisers to 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. Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassa- dor to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn.
WILL COMEY TALK?
Former FBI director James Comey has received invitations to testify from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He has not yet stated publicly that he will appear. “Mr. Comey was central to the events of the past few weeks,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said Thursday morning on the Senate floor. “We still need to hear from him.”
DONE DEAL
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told senators he knew Trump planned to fire Comey before he wrote his memo criticizing the FBI director’s actions, two senators told reporters Thursday after a private meeting with the official. Trump told Rosenstein that Comey “had to go,” said Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin after leaving the all- senators meeting. “He learned of the president’s decision to fire him and then he wrote his memo with his rationale,” Durbin said. Rosenstein, who was confirmed as deputy attorney general less than a month ago, wrote the memo that the Trump White House initially cited as the rationale for Comey’s firing. The memo harshly criticized Comey’s handling of an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump later told NBC that he was going to fire Comey no matter what Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recommended.