"Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump" – a new book by Yahoo News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn released Tuesday – contains some new reporting about Donald Trump's connections to Russia and how Trump himself allegedly encouraged campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos to pursue a meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Isikoff and Corn write that what happened during a March 31, 2016 Trump campaign foreign policy team meeting is different than what the public has been told. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
It was at that meeting that Papadopoulos first informed Trump and the then candidate’s other foreign policy advisers that he had contacts in Britain who could arrange a summit between the GOP candidate and Putin.
Although one of the campaign officials present, J.D. Gordon, has said the idea was shot down by then Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Papadopoulos told Mueller’s investigators that Trump encouraged him, saying he found the idea “interesting,” according to the book, which cites sources familiar with his questioning by Mueller’s investigators.
Trump looked at Sessions, as if he expected him to follow up with Papadopoulos, and Sessions nodded in response, the authors write. Sessions has said he has “no clear recollection” of the exchange with Papadopoulos. A White House official said that others at the meeting remember it differently than Papadopoulos.
"It's reported in the book, for the first time, that he has told Mueller's investigators that Trump, as he believes it, encouraged him. He was at a meeting with Trump, when he [Papadopoulos] said 'I can do this, I can set up something with Putin,' Trump said to him, 'Interesting, go do it.'"
"And it's pretty clear that once Papadopoulos [and] Carter Page became members of Trump's foreign policy advisory team that the Russians targeted them," Isikoff added. "When you look at the totality of it, it's clear that there was a penetration campaign by the Russians to get their hooks into the Trump campaign, that they were targeted, and Trump sort of dismissed all this, was oblivious to it."
Yahoo News released two excerpts from the book last week which provided details about Trump's trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013, and the Obama Administration's muted response to Russian election interference while campaign season still was full swing.
Other disclosures in the book include the following:
• The U.S. government had a secret source inside the Kremlin who warned as early as 2014 that Russia was mounting an ambitious campaign of cyberattacks and information warfare against Western European democracies and the United States ... The secret Kremlin source also provided stark insights into the contempt that Putin and his senior officials had for President Barack Obama and his administration — often expressed in racist terms.
• Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, was so concerned about Trump’s ties to Russia-friendly advisers that he contemplated an idea to catch the Trump campaign in the act of colluding with Moscow by mounting what he called a “honeypot” operation straight out of a spy novel.
• President Obama was incredulous when he was first briefed in early January 2017 about the contents of a dossier, prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele ...
• When then President-elect Trump was handed a two-page synopsis of the Steele dossier, at the end of a U.S. intelligence briefing about Russia, he too had a visceral reaction. “It’s a shakedown,” Trump said, after FBI Director James Comey left the room ...
Isikoff and Corn also detail the extensive efforts by Alexander Torshin, a Putin ally, and his assistant, Maria Butina, to connect with the Trump campaign. A curious incident from 2015 is of particular interest.
Those efforts began as early as July 2015, when Butina showed up at FreedomFest, a conservative gathering, in Las Vegas, where Trump was speaking. During a Q&A session, Trump called on Butina, who asked him about his stance on Russia and the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on the country — eliciting the first response from the new GOP candidate on an issue that was a top priority of Putin’s government.
“I know Putin,” Trump replied during the course of a five-minute answer. “I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin, OK? I don’t think you’d need the sanctions.”
Later in the campaign, the book reports that two top Trump officials — Steve Bannon and Reince Preibus — discussed a video of the Las Vegas event and wondered how Butina gained such quick access to Trump’s ear.
“How was it that this Russian woman happened to be in Las Vegas for that event? And how was it that Trump happened to call on her?” Isikoff and Corn write. “And Trump’s response? It was odd, Bannon thought, that Trump had a fully developed answer. Priebus agreed there was something strange about Butina. Whenever there were events held by conservative groups, she was always around.”
"Russian Roulette" authors on how Moscow got its "hooks" into the Trump campaign (CBS News)
Papadopoulos says that Trump personally encouraged him to arrange meeting with Putin, new book reports (Yahoo News)