Trump Aides Confirmed To Be In Constant Contact With Russia During Campaign

Aides for Donald Trump when he was the republican nominee for president during the 2016 election cycle have now been confirmed to have been in constant contact with high-level Russian officials that were well known to U.S. intelligence officials at the time.

The news broke late Tuesday night when CNN published a report on the Russian intelligence situation, which comes on the heels of many other scandals that Donald Trump is being linked to that also involves Russia. Those other situations include Trump’s Senior National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigning after revelations that he met with high-level Russian officials, up to and including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Take a moment to consider: for 3 weeks Donald Trump gave skeezy traitor Flynn access to all of America’s most sensitive classified intel. pic.twitter.com/2RwmtUQ3LF

— Ryan Adams (@filmystic) February 14, 2017

New evidence has concluded that aides to Donald Trump on the campaign trail before and after the election were determined to have had constant contact with these high-level Russian officials, as the CNN report confirms from sources cited as law enforcement and intelligence officials.

Although this is just evidence of the Donald Trump team meeting with foreign Russian officials during a campaign season, and it is not necessarily unordinary, it does not confirm the details of those communications with the Russians. It does not prove collusion at this time, nor does it indicate that the Donald Trump team joined up with the Russians to sabotage the election. But it does confirm the communications that were previously only speculated upon after reports surfaced that Russia had been implicated with the hacking of the DNC e-mails that were published by WikiLeaks and some believe that is what cost Hillary Clinton the election.

The multiple Russia scandals have so many different layers at this point, it is hard to keep many of the details in line. But here are a few things that started all of this investigative journalism and intelligence activity that has led to these new media revelations, which are fiery and demonstrably incriminating, to say the least, in a highly polarized America since Donald Trump took office on January 20, 2017.

All of this first started when Donald Trump never criticized, but rather praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his campaign rallies while he was running for President. At the onset, that got journalists and opposition parties to ponder as to whether or not Donald Trump and Russia had some sort of arrangement. Of course, it was something that none of the agencies nor the press were ever able to prove and the election ran its course with Donald Trump winning the Electoral College in November 2016, and therefore winning the presidency.

After Donald Trump won the election, he started making public comments on Twitter about how he would have won the popular vote if it had not been for 3 to 5 million people voting illegally, which he does not offer any evidence to support his claim. At about the same time, intelligence agencies had concluded that the Russians had hacked the DNC e-mails that were published by WikiLeaks, which added an extra layer of scrutiny to Donald Trump’s win.

Then, in late December 2016, incoming Senior National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had some high-profile communications with high-level Russian officials, which included a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and it resulted in him lying to Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions that were placed on Russia by former president, Barack Obama. Details of this situation were only made public last weekend following news reports that exposed the truth.

As a result, Donald Trump asked for and received the resignation of Michael Flynn and has subsequently voiced his opinion on the Washington leaks on his high-profile Twitter page, leading to even more backlash and condemnation from the opposition party.

Donald Trump’s Russia Scandal Is Just Getting Started https://t.co/R6ilG5QUVQ

— loony (@badgirl_loony) February 14, 2017

There were also reports that Russia has a very specific dossier on Donald Trump that puts the president in compromising situations. When that report came out, Donald Trump attacked CNN by calling them “fake news.” CNN recently confirmed certain details about the Russian dossier, which White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also called “fake news.”

With these new reports about the aides of then candidate, Donald Trump, it is unclear what the President’s path forward is and how he will respond to the allegations against his team as well as himself.

One thing that should be noted here is that it is not uncommon for a presidential campaign staff to have communications with foreign leaders and dignitaries during their campaign. But the frequency that the campaign of Donald Trump held communications with Russia is what raised red flags for the intelligence community.

But there has also been confirmation that Donald Trump was briefed on the communications that his aides had with Russia before he became president in late January.

[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]