TRUMP CABINET TURMOIL
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses himself from FBI probe of Russian election meddling
“I’d consider it an informal conversation just like my interactions with dozens of other ambassadors and senior diplomats in Cleveland.” J. D. Gordon, Trump campaign’s director of national security
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is not the only member of President Trump’s campaign who spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a diplomacy conference connected to the Republican National Convention in July. At least two more members of the Trump campaign’s national security team also spoke with Kislyak at the event, and several more Trump security advisers were in attendance.
It’s unknown what the Trump campaign officials who spoke with the ambassador — J. D. Gordon and Carter Page — discussed. Those who took part in the events in Cleveland said it is not unusual
for presidential campaign teams to interact with diplomats.
The newly revealed communications further contradict months of denials by Trump officials that his campaign had contact with officials representing the Russian government.
The Justice Department’s acknowledgment Wednesday that Sessions spoke with Kislyak twice in 2016 led to calls for Sessions to recuse himself from investigations into the Trump team’s contact with Russia. Thursday afternoon, Sessions said he would recuse himself.
Multiple attendees at the Global Partners in Diplomacy event in Cleveland said the contacts between diplomats and political officials are not unusual. The program schedule and social media photographs show ambassadors from dozens of countries attended, alongside many of the original national security advisers to Trump’s campaign.
Gordon, who managed the advisory committee as the Trump campaign’s director of national security, said he spoke with Kislyak in Cleveland, but it is not unusual for a presidential campaign to interact with diplomats.
“I’d consider it an informal conversation just like my interactions with dozens of other ambassadors and senior diplomats in Cleveland,” Gordon said.
Page, another member of the Trump campaign’s national security advisory committee, cited “confidentiality rules” in declining to say what he discussed with the ambassador.
“I had no substantive discussions with him,” said Page, who left the campaign later in the summer amid controversy over a speech he gave in Moscow in early July criticizing American foreign policy and sanctions against Russia.
Hossein Khorram, a Republican National Committee delegate from Washington state who wasn’t part of Trump’s campaign, attended the diplomacy event and said it provided a forum for diplomats to share their concerns with GOP officials. After formal panel discussions, the attendees broke off into informal conversations.
“Basically, the ambassadors — including the Russian ambassador — they were expressing their, mainly, fears about the war on terror and collaborating with the United States,” he said. “There was no promises made on behalf of the Trump administration.”
Sessions, Gordon and Trump campaign national security advisory committee member Walid Phares all spoke on stage at the Global Partners in Diplomacy program July 20 in an auditorium at Case Western Reserve University, according to the program schedule and pictures posted on social media. K. T. McFarland, who became deputy national security adviser, was present at the day’s sessions.
Phares did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. Another member of the national security advisory committee who was at the Cleveland event, Joseph Schmitz, referred questions about his interactions with Rus- sian officials to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks.
Hicks has denied any communication between the campaign and the Russian government. “The campaign had no contact with Russian officials,” she said in November.
The U. S. intelligence community concluded the Russian government tried to influence the presidential election. The Democratic National Committee’s computers had been hacked weeks before — in an intrusion U. S. investigators said was orchestrated by Russian intelligence services — and the first batch of emails from that hack was published by WikiLeaks on July 22.
Since then, Russia’s alleged interference in the election and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials have been at the center of investigations by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
In February, Michael Flynn resigned as Trump’s national security adviser after revelations of his failure to provide complete information to administration officials about his contacts with Kislyak in December 2016. Flynn had said he didn’t talk with the ambassador about sanctions but revealed later that he had.
The White House did not answer questions Thursday from USA TODAY regarding the nature of the conversations between campaign officials and Kislyak, whether there were other contacts between the campaign and Russian government and why statements have been made denying contacts.
“This was a widely attended four- day event with dozens of ambassadors and hundreds of attendees,” the White House said in a statement. “No interaction was substantive, and to insinuate otherwise is deeply dishonest.”
Although an event similar to Global Partners in Diplomacy was held at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, it is not clear whether Kislyak attended that program or spoke with officials from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.