Trump Campaign’s 100 Russian Contacts? Not So Fast
A news story making the rounds claims that members of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition team engaged in more than 100 contacts with “Russian-linked officials.”
The compilation is a product of the Center for American Progress (CAP), founded by John Podesta, who served as chairman of Trump opponent Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The analysis uses questionable methods to claim contacts with “Russian-linked officials” and categorizes Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, as Russia-linked operatives based on U.S. intelligence assessments despite a lack of conclusive evidence.
USA Today led the charge with a headline claiming, “Trump’s team had over 100 contacts with Russian-linked officials, according to think tank analysis.” Similar headlines ran in other major newspapers. USA Today did report that the analysis was conducted by CAP and allowed that CAP is a “liberal think tank.” But the newspaper did not mention Podesta and his role founding CAP, where he still serves on the group’s board.
A closer look at CAP’s report alleging “101 contacts with Russia-linked operatives” finds numerous methodology issues.
Besides counting several instances of reported communications between WikiLeaks and individuals in Trump’s orbit, the report counted contacts between members of Trump’s team, including Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., and Russian moguls Emin and Aras Agalarov.
The Agalarovs, who deny they acted on behalf of the Russian government, were involved in initiating contact with Trump Jr., which resulted in the infamous Trump Tower meeting.
Emin Agalarov, a Russian singer and businessman, is the son of Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov. Aras Agalarov organized the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow when the pageant was partially owned by Trump.
Bob Goldstone, a publicist for the Agalarovs, emailed Trump Jr. to set up the Trump Tower meeting with Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya and other Russian nationals.
That meeting was also counted in CAP’s list of contacts with “Russian-linked operatives” despite the mounting evidence pointing to the increasing likelihood of the confab being set up as a dirty trick against Trump’s presidential campaign.
CAP left out that three Russian participants at the meeting have ties to the controversial Fusion GPS outfit, and two have confirmed ties to Hillary Clinton, as Breitbart News reported.
Also, email logs brought to light show numerous emails were exchanged between a Clinton associate, Fusion GPS and Trump Tower participants, with the subjects of some of those emails referencing the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials and was by all accounts the very topic of the Trump Tower meeting.
One Russian participant in the Trump Tower presentation admits to personally knowing Hillary Clinton since the late 1990s and says he “knew” some of the people who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Another Russian attendee, a translator, testified that he was previously an interpreter for Clinton herself as well as for John Kerry and Barack Obama.
Soros-Funded Group Fights The Wall
Demand Justice, an organization founded by former members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and associated with a “social welfare organization” financed by billionaire activist George Soros, is raising money for an eventual court fight against what the group describes as President Trump’s proposed “racist, unnecessary wall.”
Demand Justice claims: “This lawless president has created a humanitarian crisis along the southern border of our country by targeting asylum seekers; already, two children have died in U.S. border patrol custody.”
The organization fails to mention that Trump’s proposed barrier seeks to stop the “humanitarian crisis” of illegal aliens, including children, attempting the dangerous trek to cross the porous U.S.-Mexico border.
Less than one hour after Trump announced Kavanagh as his Supreme Court nominee, Demand Justice had already put up the website stopkavanaugh.com, exclaiming: “We need to demand that the Senate defeat the Brett Kavanaugh nomination.”
A recent Daily Caller investigation found that Soros’s Open Society Policy Center (OSPC) previously donated some $2.2 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the fiscal sponsor for Demand Justice.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund describes itself as providing a “fiscal sponsorship vehicle for donors to direct capital toward social welfare projects that include advocacy, lobbying, and some political and electoral activities.”
Clinton herself put her name on a separate fundraising email pitch via her associated Onward Together organization seeking funds to “fight back against the administration’s hateful rhetoric and harmful policies. Donate directly to the organizations helping to reunite and provide support to families seeking asylum at the border.”