According to Reuters, after Donald Trump was elected president on November 8, Michael Flynn and Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, discussed “establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.”
The motivation for such an idea reportedly stemmed from the two sides feeling that the national security apparatus was hostile to improved relations between the U.S. and Russia.
Reuters reported that current and former U.S. officials who are aware of the back-and-forth between Trump’s campaign and Russia say that Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign traded at least 18 calls and emails with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in the last seven months of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Six phone calls were reportedly made between Kislyak and Trump advisers, including Flynn, according to three current and former officials said.
In January, after Russia claimed it had been in contact with the Trump campaign during the presidential campaign, the White House denied it. It was later confirmed that Senator Jeff Sessions, who was close to the campaign but had no official role with it, had met with Kislyak twice.