Trump listened with interest at Papadopolous pitch for campaign meeting with Putin: report

[kpete]

In the midst of a coordinated White House effort to distance Donald Trump from former staffer George Papadopoulos, The New York Times reported Tuesday on details from a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting.

Citing a former campaign aide who attended the meeting, The Times reported Trump “listened with interest” as Papadopoulos pitched the idea of a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though campaign supervisor Sam Clovis worried about the “optics” of a meeting with the Russian strongman, Trump asked questions of Papadopoulos’s plan.

Trump “didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no” the source disclosed.

However, then Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) rejected the meeting and asked those assembled to never speak of it again.



MORE:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/us/trump-foreign-policy-advisers.html?pagewanted=all
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/trump-listened-with-interest-at-papadopolous-pitch-for-campaign-meeting-with-putin-report/

[HipChick]

1. K&R ..is this akin to Nixon's verbal agreement on tape?

[bearsfootball516]

2. I mean, it isn't illegal for Trump to listen to someone pitch him having a meeting with Putin

Shady as hell, yes. But unless he actually had a meeting, it's not illegal. Personally, I doubt the two ever met face-to-face during the campaign. Not to say there wasn't collusion, just that I don't think they met.

[riversedge]

3. Chris Hayes is talking of this now

[riversedge]

4. 'new questions about sessions knowledge of contacts between Russia and Trump

campaign' is the runner.

[tanyev]

5. But he was just an unpaid volunteer who got covfefe for everyone!

[Kirk Lover]

6. We already know that they met with the Russians. I can only IMAGINE what we don't know.

They are fucked.

[Hornedfrog1985]

7. Youre telling me...

The man with the all time greatest memory doesnt remember someone asking him to go meet the dictator of russia? I think i would remember exactly who it was that pitched that to me. Because it woukd be totally batshit insane.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Pundit on MSNBC said, about Sessions rejecting the idea:

Pundit said that some are saying, "See? Sessions rejected the idea of Trump meeting Putin. That shows they weren't involved in things like that." The Pundit said that no, that doesn't show that at all....because it would have been INSANE for Trump to meet personally with Putin. That's why Sessions rejected it.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. But what kind of coffee did Papadopoulos bring to the meeting?

I mean, that was what he was there for. Right?

Bring coffee and arrange a meeting with Putin. In that order. And nothing else.

[L. Coyote]

10. They're trying to distract from the criminal part, accepting "dirt" on Hillary from illegal hacking

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Sessions probably party to a top-level back channel already arranged with Russians

Hence rejection. No need for duplication.

Clovis and Papadopoulos probably out of the loop of the top-level back channel. Probably arranged by Manafort and Carter Page. May have involved Roger Stone though he may have only been the main coordination with Wikileaks.

[BobTheSubgenius]

12. Have I got this right?

A volunteer coffee gofer pitched a meeting with Putin? That seems unlikely.