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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (11 Viewers)

moleculo said:
we can also circle back to that Financial Times article (I think this thread, even) that claimed Russian Mob used Trump Casinos to launder money.  That is, lower level guys (I think), not even the oligarch types.
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Bag men. That's how rackets work.

- eta - I will try to find the article.

 
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Mechanism for transmitting this intelligence involves 'pension' disbursements to Russian emigres living in US as cover, using consular officials in New York, DC and Miami
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...On the mechanism for rewarding relevant assets based in the US, and effecting a two-way flow of intelligence and other useful information, Source claimed that Russian diplomatic staff in key cities such as New York, Washington DC and Miami were using the emigre 'pension' distribution system as cover. The operation therefore depended on key people in the US Russian emigre community for its success. Tens of thousands of dollars were involved.

In terms of the intelligence flow from the TRUMP team to Russia, Source reported that much of this concerned the activities of business oligarchs and their families' activities and assets in the US, with which PUTIN and the Kremlin seemed preoccupied.
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- Steele Dossier.

Miami Herald:

...While many of the dossier’s assertions may never be substantiated, media reports over the last two weeks about the timing of electronic intercepts of conversations by Trump aides with Russians have lent a measure of credibility to Steele and his reports. The purported scheme to mask payments as pension benefits could offer U.S. investigators one possible avenue for confirming a portion of Steele’s reports.

The dossier says diplomatic staff based in the United States were involved in recruiting and compensating Russian emigre hackers inside this country and other Russian operatives. Their payments, it said, were authorized by consular offices in cities such as New York and Washington and in Miami, where only an informal consular arrangement exists. Two sources told McClatchy that an informal working group of intelligence agencies are scrutinizing the pension system as part of the election plot.

McClatchy reported Feb. 14 that a senior diplomat in Russia’s embassy in Washington, identified in Steele’s dossier as having played a key role in coordinating the pension “ruse,” was under scrutiny by federal investigators when he left the United States last August, according to two sources familiar with the inquiry. Diplomat Mikhail Kalugin, now back in Moscow and out of investigators’ reach, has said he had been long scheduled to return home at that time and denied having any role in paying U.S. pro-Trump operatives.

In early 2015, the Kremlin, its intelligence agencies and Russian banks faced a worsening predicament. President Barack Obama had imposed a series of sanctions to punish Russia, its banks and a long list of individuals and Russian institutions over Moscow’s support for separatists who seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

While the sanctions were tightened in the summer of 2015 to prohibit large Russian banks from doing business in the United States, money transfers were still permitted. But Russian banks might have shied from wiring money for the FSB for fear of further sanctions, said Harrell, now a senior fellow for the Washington think tank Center for a New American Security.

By using the existing stream of relatively modest payments to thousands of Russian emigres, it “would be pretty easy to layer some illicit payments to hackers,” he said.

The simplest way to move funds, Harrell said, would be to wire them through Western Union, where there is less of a paper trail than if the hacker opened a bank account. But the pensioners also could have acted as intermediaries, he said.

A pensioner could have cut a deal with the FSB that left no trail for investigators, Harrell said. “He says, ‘OK, I’ll give my cash to this hacker. You give my brother in Moscow $2,500 a month.” Or the pensioner could earn a monthly fee for simply turning over his pension money to the operative, he said.

Harrell worked with the Treasury Department and intelligence agencies to craft financial sanctions that sought to thwart bad actors such as Iran and North Korea and also change the behavior of more powerful world players, including Russia.

Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University in suburban Washington, said the pension system would be an attractive option for the Russian FSB amid the current sanctions.

“You want to hide the illicit in your legal financial flows,” said Shelley, who is an expert on Russian money laundering. “You’re looking for points that aren’t going to arouse suspicion.”

The tougher sanctions on Russian banks, and limits on lending to some key Russian energy conglomerates, date to 2012 and have targeted many of Putin’s closest associates and financial institutions.

But as a result of the sanctions, and similar actions by European nations, most Western banks scrutinized even routine Russian transactions.

Couldn’t the Russians have just moved stacks of cash via a “diplomatic pouch,” which is immune from searches by government authorities? Yes, but delivering the cash could be risky, especially if the Russian operatives were geographically scattered.

“The last couple of years the Russian diplomats have been under pretty heavy surveillance in the United States, so you wouldn’t want the physical contact,” Harrell said.

Nikolay Lakhonin, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, declined a request to discuss how pension payments are distributed in the United States.

He provided a statement from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova that dismissed the dossier as “mind-boggling heresies” and “simply unbearable nonsense.”

Nor would the U.S. Embassy in Moscow answer questions about the pensions.

In late 2014, the Russian pension agency estimated that the government was sending benefits to 259,000 emigres in the United States, Israel and numerous other countries around the globe. Tass, the Russian news agency, reported in 2015 that the average pension paid to Russians who served in wars was $546 per month.

McClatchy reached several Russian pensioners living in the United States. Through interpreters, they said they were required to establish proof with consular officials of their Russian heritage to qualify for benefits, which usually arrived every three months. They generally gave someone in Russia power of attorney, and their Russian contact then sent the money through a bank wire transfer or Western Union.

A 52-year-old veteran of the Russian war in Afghanistan in the 1980s who lives in New York, said through a translator that the Russian Ministry of Defense automatically deposits his monthly checks in a bank account that he maintains in Russia, where he is still a citizen.

Richard Nephew, a former State Department negotiator on the Russian sanctions, agreed that it wouldn’t be far-fetched to visualize Russian intelligence agencies moving money through the pension system.

If you are a spy agency, he said, “you go to whatever works .... (The pension system) was available, potentially subject to less scrutiny, and you take advantage of that.”
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The way I see it what is described is a two track system:

- Trump Org/campaign communicated with RIS/FSB through its Russian oligarchic US connections (and I take it also through Manafort's Russo-Ukrainian connections via other recent reports). These connections to Trump go back years and also provide the further leverage that was needed to influence him.

- Hackers were paid through the Russian emigre pension system which would permit multiple deposits under multiple names into one account or several. Russia kept Trump & Co. apprised as needed through the same oligarchy/familial connections in the US.

 
 
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Sammy3469 said:
The fact they are even probing the finances means they have something.  It could be as minor as the Flynn payment for the RT dinner, but my guess is there's a paper trail a mile long of the oligarchs buying Trump apartments in his various developments.  Once the have those they can work backward slowly, but pretty easily.

There is a ton to unravel especially since Ross owns a chunk of one of the favorite Cyprus banks to do this sort of thing through and it takes a lot of time, but you want something that would shake up the Republican senators, this is it.
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- I find it odd that Miami Herald and Maddow waited until now, Ross' confirmation, to run this story.

Sammy3469 said:
...All it really takes is the FBI to find one of the LLCs was a front used by say Sater to pass through "income" to both himself and Trump and the whole thing unravels.  Granted if the Russians are involved there is not probably extensive layering involved, but the FBI has become quite adept doing this type of thing lately (and yes it can take awhile for them to follow all the threads since the layering occurs through several shady countries like the bank Ross owns a part of in Cyprus...another convenient link).
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- That really is what happened in Watergate. How did this check from CREEP end up in a plumber's account?

WaPo didn't figure that on their own, the FBI gave them that.

More on Bank of Cyprus here:

For the past two years, Ross has been a business partner with Vekselberg in a major financial project involving the Bank of Cyprus, the country's largest and most significant financial institution. A financial crisis in 2013 led to the bank's collapse and eventual bailout. The bank had held billions in deposits from wealthy Russians—some of it presumably dirty money or funds deposited there to escape Russian taxation—and during its restructuring, a large amount of these deposits were converted into shares, giving Russian plutocrats a majority ownership (on paper) of the bank. The idea of Russians gaining control of a European bank unnerved European financial powers. But in the summer of 2014, Ross led a 1 billion euro takeover of the troubled bank in a deal that offered Russian shareholders a buyout. (Ross had previously bought a stake in the Bank of Ireland during an earlier European debt crisis—a move that turned out to be profitable.) Still, the Bank of Cyprus would not be freed of Russian influence. Shortly after Ross' deal, the bank announced that Vekselbergs' conglomerate, the Renova Group, had become the bank's second-largest shareholder.
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trump-commerce-pick-wilbur-ross-financial-ties-russians

 
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Rachel Maddow was all over the link between Wilbur Ross, Trump and Russian oligarchs tonight.  Turned MSNBC on earlier to listen to John Schindler and her show was on before I went to bed here.  Huge article upcoming in the New Yorker about all this too.  But, Nunes sees nothing to investigate here?!  WTF is going on.

 
This is absolutely outstanding work (as Maddow discussed with Remnick and @rodg12 eluded to above):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war

It does less to advance any new material on Russia-Trump as it does explore Putin and Russia's background, our history of policy missteps, and the convergence of every crazy, wild affair to where we are today.  It's a great historical document.

 
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Leeroy Jenkins said:
Slapdash said:
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to a trade publication, eTurboNews.
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I thought they had nothing to do with Russia?
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“How many people have to say that there’s nothing there before you realize there’s nothing there? At some point, you do have to ask yourself what are you actually looking for. How many times do you have to come to the same conclusion before you take the answer?"

“All I’m saying is the people who’ve done the investigating about Russia overall and its activities in the United States — specifically now with respect to our election — haven’t provided anything that lead me to believe or should lead you to believe”

-- Sean Spicer, February 27, 2017

Melissa has been very clear and consistent on this @Leroy Jinkins - when are you going to accept the answer already provided?

 
cobalt_27 said:
This is absolutely outstanding work (as Maddow discussed with Remnick and @rodg12 eluded to above):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war

It does less to advance any new material on Russia-Trump as it does explore Putin and Russia's background, our history of policy missteps, and the convergence of every crazy, wild affair to where we are today.  It's a great historical document.
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Great read. Makes me question Kerry and Obama a bit more. Putin is dangerous. 

 
[scooter] said:
"How many people have to say that President Nixon had nothing to do with a coverup before you realize that he had nothing to do with a coverup?"
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Third rate burglary. Can't believe Katherine Graham is happy with how much money they are wasting on that story. 

Nixon to the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff:

“The press is your enemy Enemies. Understand that? … Now, never act that way … give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you're trying to be helpful. But don't help the bastards. Ever. Because they're trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”

 
That is a bigly story from Maddow.  Haven't had a chance to read the New Yorker article yet.

Wilbur Ross's Russian connection is a new one that I've seen.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
- I find it odd that Miami Herald and Maddow waited until now, Ross' confirmation, to run this story.

- That really is what happened in Watergate. How did this check from CREEP end up in a plumber's account?

WaPo didn't figure that on their own, the FBI gave them that.

More on Bank of Cyprus here:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trump-commerce-pick-wilbur-ross-financial-ties-russians
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Just to put a finer point on Cyprus (this is all from the AML world), the favorite Russian places to launder money through were Cyprus (for European-US transactions and the Seychelles for Asian stuff.  They'd route the money there through the Bank of Cyprus (Ross's bank), then turn around and send it to Cayman, one of the other British entities (Isle of Man, BVI, etc) and/or a Delaware LLC.  Once they got the money into Cyprus it was all pretty painless to set up the shell LLC or other legal entities to do this (and before we cast stones at the rest of the world, a Delaware LLC is notoriously one of the most opaque and easiest ways to launder money and is one of the favorite ways even today since it has the imprimatur of being a vetted entity since it's located in the US, but I digress).  

The key was getting it into the "world-banking" system.  For that they used they Ross's Bank of Cyprus.  Why?  Cyprus is in the EU, so if you can get the money there, it's free and clear especially since the Bank of Cyprus has branches in the UK and at one time (2007) in Moscow.  Until 2012 when they came under FSA (UK) regulations, they operated as a wild west bank doing anything for anyone (they still do, but are more "discrete" as they've learned the AML laws of the world.  No need for complicated wash trades (another favorite way to get money to the UK), no need to pay off the Swiss, no need to worry about the Germans.  In one swoop, you've gotten money into the EU.  And boy did they and still do today.

The question is why Ross, someone who sued Trump over his casinos (hint, hint), someone more adept at vulture investing manufacturing and other hard industry assets, someone who doesn't have a history investing in Europe is involved with THE bank of Cyprus known almost exclusively for laundering money for the Russians even to this day.  

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
Great read. Makes me question Kerry and Obama a bit more. Putin is dangerous. 
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I'm an Obama guy, but he wasn't the perfect president and made a number of substantial errors and miscalculations.  He really tip-toed around Russia, for example, almost placating them to curry favor for other objectives in Iran and Syria, neither of which materialized in our national interests.

 
and let me just say...money was almost impossible to follow even 10 years ago.  It was a blackhole and money just plopped out of thin air.  While that's still somewhat true today, the AML prosecutions of the Swiss and Germans, the Panama Papers, and vastly improved technology at the big banks have let the FBI (and others) learn how illicit big money really gets moved around.  So while they may not know the who (LLC and other legal entities are still very opaque on who owns them, etc), the actual money trail today is much easier to follow.  

I've said this before in this thread, but while the Russians know what they are doing to shield who the money comes from, Trump et al are relative amateurs and if there is a money trail, it may take time to unravel, but it can be.  

 
Leeroy Jenkins said:
cobalt_27 said:
This is absolutely outstanding work (as Maddow discussed with Remnick and @rodg12 eluded to above):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war

It does less to advance any new material on Russia-Trump as it does explore Putin and Russia's background, our history of policy missteps, and the convergence of every crazy, wild affair to where we are today.  It's a great historical document.
Click to expand...
Great read. Makes me question Kerry and Obama a bit more. Putin is dangerous. 
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Remnick (New Yorker editor) was on Maddow last night and said while his magazine, the NYT and WaPo - and many other outlets - will stay after it. But there are limits to what investigative journalists can accomplish. Sooner of later this has to make it Congressional investigation or hearings, or it dies on the vine.

Kerry raised the specter of a 9/11 style commission. Obama nixed it because he thought it would politicize the issue. Plus I think they underestimated Trump (as did everyone), it seemed inconceivable Clinton could lose to such a terrible candidate. In the end they probably felt the risk of destabilization & causing distrust in the election process wasn't worth it.

Oops.

 
moleculo said:
we can also circle back to that Financial Times article (I think this thread, even) that claimed Russian Mob used Trump Casinos to launder money.  That is, lower level guys (I think), not even the oligarch types.
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I just wanted to try to bookmark these somehow since the search function stinks.

These are the FT articles I think you're referring to:

The FT reports on the DNI report. Among the powerful facts that DNI totally missed were the series of very deep studies published in the FT that examined the structure and history of several major Trump real estate projects from the last decade--the period after his seventh bankruptcy and the cancellation of all his bank lines of credit. What these exposés showed is that Trump pursued the projects hand in glove with Russian mobsters who work closely with Putin's Kremlin, lead by Russia's chief organized crime boss, Semën Mogilievich, and even appointed a number of Mogilievich's capos to management positions in the projects. Also, the money to build these projects flowed almost entirely from Russian sources. In other words, after his business crashed, Trump was floated and made to appear to operate a successful business enterprise through the infusion of hundreds of millions in cash from dark Russian sources. He was their man.
In response to several queries, here are the links to the major FT stories. I understand from a reporter there that two more stories on the same subject are still in the process of finalization and are likely to appear soon:
https://www.ft.com/con…/ea52a678-9cfb-11e6-8324-be63473ce146
https://www.ft.com/con…/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923
https://www.ft.com/con…/549ddfaa-5fa5-11e6-b38c-7b39cbb1138a
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The shadowy Russian émigré touting Trump


US election raises ghosts of cold war-era spy games
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Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection

FT probe finds evidence a Trump venture has links to alleged laundering network
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US election: Trump’s Russian riddle

The Republican nominee became the face of Bayrock, a developer with roots in the Soviet Union
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- If you can think of any others that go with this please do so.


 
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BobbyLayne said:
Remnick (New Yorker editor) was on Maddow last night and said while his magazine, the NYT and WaPo - and many other outlets - will stay after it. But there are limits to what investigative journalists can accomplish. Sooner of later this has to make it Congressional investigation or hearings, or it dies on the vine.

Kerry raised the specter of a 9/11 style commission. Obama nixed it because he thought it would politicize the issue. Plus I think they underestimated Trump (as did everyone), it seemed inconceivable Clinton could lose to such a terrible candidate. In the end they probably felt the risk of destabilization & causing distrust in the election process wasn't worth it.

Oops.
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IMO there is a 2 year window fro the Democrats to take over one of the houses of Congress.

Right now the options are:

1. - Let the 3 committees in Congress do their work. One of them, Nunes' House Intelligence Committee, is a joke.

2. - The FBI & IC. It's been reported the FBI alone has 3 investigations.

3. - Special Prosecutor. - Thinking about this some more the problem here may be if there was no true 'crime' involved. Trump types seem to be leaning on that idea right now.

4. - Independent Commission. - This may be the best in the final analysis. Any crimes would come out in teh wash. The main thing should be creating a process for moving forward with any fact finding in a public, non-partisan light.

 
 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
IMO there is a 2 year window fro the Democrats to take over one of the houses of Congress.

Right now the options are:

1. - Let the 3 committees in Congress do their work. One of them, Nunes' House Intelligence Committee, is a joke.

2. - The FBI & IC. It's been reported the FBI alone has 3 investigations.

3. - Special Prosecutor. - Thinking about this some more the problem here may be if there was no true 'crime' involved. Trump types seem to be leaning on that idea right now.

4. - Independent Commission. - This may be the best in the final analysis. Any crimes would come out in teh wash. The main thing should be creating a process for moving forward with any fact finding in a public, non-partisan light.
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BTW 2 and 3 don't jive from an logical point of view.  If the FBI is investigating they at least think there is a possibility there is a crime involved.  

 
The Sam Harris podcast with David Frum is worth a listen, as he brings the Russia stuff into focus in a very simple but effective way -- he said the Trump-Russia connection contains a good number of secrets, but few mysteries. Meaning the specifics of the conspiracies & transactions may be opaque but the connection is clearly there for all to see, as he clearly & concisely details all of the known Trump-Russia material that has been shown before plus some I wasn't aware of or hadn't considered enough in this context. For those still possessing sanity & reason, a pretty damning indictment imo. 

 
Looks like Nunes folded a little and the House Intelligence Committee will investigate the ties, though it looks like they'll defer to the FBI on some things...meaning the FBI is investigating.

Also, MSNBC has a show on at 9 tonight and the WH was told to preserve all records.

 
Sammy3469 said:
Boom...Dutch and British intelligence have info on Trump associates meeting with Russians across Europe and we apparently have signals intercepts from within the Kremlin as well

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-trump-russia-election-hacking.html?referer=
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More than a half-dozen current and former officials described various aspects of the effort to preserve and distribute the intelligence, and some said they were speaking to draw attention to the material and ensure proper investigation by Congress. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information, nearly all of which remains secret, making an independent public assessment of the competing Obama and Trump administration claims impossible.
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Drip drip drip. 

 
Just want to say thanks for all the links, folks.  I'm trying to not get my hopes up because it would suck for nothing to happen.  It's looking worse (for Trump, better for America) with each article you guys post though.

 
McGarnicle said:
The Sam Harris podcast with David Frum is worth a listen, as he brings the Russia stuff into focus in a very simple but effective way -- he said the Trump-Russia connection contains a good number of secrets, but few mysteries. Meaning the specifics of the conspiracies & transactions may be opaque but the connection is clearly there for all to see, as he clearly & concisely details all of the known Trump-Russia material that has been shown before plus some I wasn't aware of or hadn't considered enough in this context. For those still possessing sanity & reason, a pretty damning indictment imo.
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Frum stresses how important it is to have an independent commission instead of/in concert with a special prosecutor. He was also generally pessimistic about the situation, he made it sound like Trump was more likely than not to get away with it.

 
cobalt_27 said:
This is absolutely outstanding work (as Maddow discussed with Remnick and @rodg12 eluded to above):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war

It does less to advance any new material on Russia-Trump as it does explore Putin and Russia's background, our history of policy missteps, and the convergence of every crazy, wild affair to where we are today.  It's a great historical document.
Click to expand...
The authior of this article was on NPR this evening.

 
Sinn Fein said:
I would not get your hopes up.  The GOP will use its majority status to focus on the last bullet point - leaks of classified information.  They will decide quickly enough there is not enough evidence of Russian involvement in the election, or with Trump's campaign
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The evidence of his camp meeting with Russians in Europe is pretty damning.  Hard to sweep that under the rug, though they may try.

 
SameSongNDance said:
Frum stresses how important it is to have an independent commission instead of/in concert with a special prosecutor. He was also generally pessimistic about the situation, he made it sound like Trump was more likely than not to get away with it.
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I haven't seen anything thus far that gives me optimism otherwise.

Frum also gives a good explanation of our lax bribery laws and how hard it is to prove quid pro quo. Trump will likely profit in the billions off of his presidency.

 
rodg12 said:
The evidence of his camp meeting with Russians in Europe is pretty damning.  Hard to sweep that under the rug, though they may try.
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They'll try but at a minimum the European press will pick this up now since there are elections in Holland, France, and Germany this year.  Make no mistake the reference to British and Dutch intelligence by these sources was intentional.

 
As much as I like chaos - I think people may be reading too much into "meetings between Trump associates and Russian officials"

First, the article concedes that "russian officials" is a very nebulous term - where someone who is not officially a government official still reports to Putin - back channel.  Second, many of Trump "associates" have independent Russian business dealings - nothing yet to suggest any meeting was for anything other than business.  And, third, why would the Russian Government need to meet with Trump Associates?  That seems unnecessarily sloppy - on the Russian's part. 

 
Oh and the signals intelligence from inside the Kremlin was thrown in to tell Congress critters and our press what to press for.

 
Sinn Fein said:
As much as I like chaos - I think people may be reading too much into "meetings between Trump associates and Russian officials"

First, the article concedes that "russian officials" is a very nebulous term - where someone who is not officially a government official still reports to Putin - back channel.  Second, many of Trump "associates" have independent Russian business dealings - nothing yet to suggest any meeting was for anything other than business.  And, third, why would the Russian Government need to meet with Trump Associates?  That seems unnecessarily sloppy - on the Russian's part. 
Click to expand...
 Why would Russia care if one of the major candidates in the US election gets caught meeting with them, if turmoil and delegitimization are the point?

 
Sessions spoke twice with Russian ambassador during Trump's presidential campaign, Justice officials say

Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.

One of the meetings was a private conversation between Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place in September in the senator’s office, at the height of what U.S. intelligence officials say was a Russian cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential race.

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.
Click to expand...

 
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Sinn Fein said:
As much as I like chaos - I think people may be reading too much into "meetings between Trump associates and Russian officials"

First, the article concedes that "russian officials" is a very nebulous term - where someone who is not officially a government official still reports to Putin - back channel.  Second, many of Trump "associates" have independent Russian business dealings - nothing yet to suggest any meeting was for anything other than business.  And, third, why would the Russian Government need to meet with Trump Associates?  That seems unnecessarily sloppy - on the Russian's part. 
Click to expand...


American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates.
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- Now, this is a specific claim in the Steele dossier. It seems important if it is proved true. Business contacts do seem natural or normal - but only if they were indeed true business contacts meeting.

- It's a good question why they would feel the need to do that.

Reasons I can think of are: avoiding eavesdropping, delivery of letters personally, and open strategy discussion, far, far away from US press or IC.

 
SameSongNDance said:
Sessions spoke twice with Russian ambassador during Trump's presidential campaign, Justice officials say
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Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) spoke twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Justice Department officials said, encounters he did not disclose when asked about possible contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign and representatives of Moscow during Sessions’s confirmation hearing to become attorney general.
Click to expand...

 
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