RCP: Just days after news of the infamous Trump Tower meeting drew the attention of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the translator present told the FBI there was no talk of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, according to recently released documents.
This exculpatory evidence – which backed accounts of Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials in attendance – was not mentioned in Special Counsel Mueller’s final report two years later. And the silence in the interim occurred as sinister theorizing on cable TV and in the press helped shape a public impression of the June 9, 2016 meeting as central to collusion.
The new documents record that on July 12, 2017, four days after the New York Times first disclosed the meeting, relying on government leaks, the FBI interviewed Anatoli Samochornov, a freelance translator with long ties to the U.S. government who had been engaged by the Russian side. Elaborating the day after its initial report, the Times used more leaks to report that Trump Jr. had agreed to the meeting because he was told that a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, would provide damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Whatever the suspicions raised by the Trump son’s emailed response, “If it’s what you say I love it,” the meeting didn’t live up to the billing, judging from what the translator told the FBI. Bureau notes show he told agents, “There was no discussion of the 2016 United States presidential election or Collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.” The agent notes also state, “There was no smoking gun according to Samochornov. There was not a discussion about ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Samochornov did not think Hillary Clinton was mentioned by name.” read more
And they want to keep the FISA court going. The swamp needs a bombing run.
Why is it so damn difficult for Trump to put a real AG in place. So far it’s been a retirement position for these do-nothing swamp dwellers.
In this instance the FBI became the FIB. A scaffold should be built outside the FIB HQ,
and the same for the CYA (CIA) and a number of Jerk off agencies.
@joe6pak:
It’s because the Senate has to confirm the appointment, and there are too many corrupt pols and swamp RINOs to let a real swamp-drainer ever get close to that job.
Al, unfortunately you are probably right.
@joe6pak – There is one intriguing possibility I’ve read about. Apparently lateral transfers are possible for someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate. In other words, an existing cabinet member could possibly be moved into the Attorney General position without the full Senate confirmation circus.
Eugene Scalia, the late Antonin Scalia’s son, is Secretary of Labor.