This week, Hope Hicks talks to Mueller.
It can’t be stopped by Agent Orange insulting Native Americans, RWNJs trying to hoax WaPo, or even Lord Dampnut deflecting from five straight days of golf including one or more private business promotions. Even the GOP might use a bogus tax reform to loot the Treasury for the super-rich and save the Trumps over a billion dollars, but the reality of #TrumpRussia is nearing its failsafe point.
Two days after Donald Trump won the election, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the Russian government had been in contact with the Trump campaign. “There were contacts,” he remarked. “We are doing this and have been doing this during the election campaign.” He noted that the Kremlin knew many of Trump’s closest allies and was in touch with them. “Obviously, we know most of the people from his [Trump’s] entourage.” he said. “Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions.” Ryabkov added that these contacts would continue.
This comment contradicted Trump’s claim—which he declared repeatedly through the campaign—that he had nothing to do with Russia. That was often how he responded when asked about Russia’s cyberattacks against the Clinton campaign and other Democratic targets. Though the US intelligence community, a month before the election, released an assessment stating that Russia was trying to subvert the presidential contest, Trump and his lieutenants constantly claimed there was no evidence of Moscow involvement.
So with a senior Russian official now stating that the Trump campaign had interacted with Russians, what was the Trump campaign to do? For Hicks, it was easy. Go with a blanket denial. “It never happened,” she said. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
No communication. That was a wildly false statement.
There were many communications—with Russians and foreign entities, including WikiLeaks, which dumped the Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence.
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