According to the channel, to communicate with the Russians went ex – head of the election headquarters of Trump Paul Manafort, the former Trump’s advisers and consultants, as well as his children: Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump.
At least 16 people from the entourage of the US President Donald Trump had contact with the Russians during the election campaign and the transfer of power in 2016. This is reported by CNN, citing court materials, media reports and public statements.
The channel notes that Trump’s associates personally met with the Russians, called up on the phone, corresponded by e-mail and sent SMS messages, and arranged video conferences.
The persons who enter Trump’s entourage and, according to CNN, were in touch with Moscow, entered the former head of the electoral headquarters of the Trump Paul Manafort, his business partner and the representative of the staff, Rick Gates, the former Advisor for security, Michael Flynn, the former political adviser George Papadopoulos.
The list includes the children of Trump: Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, as well as the son-in-law of Trump Sr. Jared Kushner and his assistant Avi Berkowitz.
In addition, the channel mentions the ex-councilors Carter Page and Roger Stone, the former attorney General Jeff Sessions, a member of the election team Jeffrey Gordon, a former consultant to the Trump Michael Caputo, the founder of private military company Blackwater, Erik Prince, a business partner of Trump Felix Suter.
CNN indicates that Manafort, Trump, Jr. and Kushner in June 2016 held a meeting in the Trump Tower with a group of Russians, who, as stated earlier, had dirt on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Manafort and Gates also met with Konstantin Kilimnik, who, according to court records, is suspected of ties to Russian intelligence.
The channel emphasizes that Flynn, Sessions, Page and Berkowitz met several times with Russia’s Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak in 2016. Stone also met with an unnamed Russian in May 2016, who offered him dirt on Clinton for $ 2 million. Caputo helped to organize the meeting.
Security services are investigating a case of probable intervention of Russia in the elections of January 2017. Trump has repeatedly denied its connection with Moscow, the Kremlin has also repeatedly stressed that it did not interfere in the internal Affairs of the United States. At the end of 2018, Trump gave written answers to Mueller on the “Russian case”.
Trump noted that he did not know about the meeting of Donald Trump Jr. with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, as the American media wrote, gave him dirt on Clinton. Trump also assured that Stone did not notify him about the meeting with representatives of the WikiLeaks portal during the election campaign, the publication of which began a scandal about interference in the elections.
