According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html?action=Click&amp;contentCollection=BreakingNews&amp;contentID=65326241&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=1&amp;mtrref=t.co">The New York Times</a> &#8211; and another one of the Times&#8217; now-infamous anonymous sources &#8211; President Trump told Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov that the firing of FBI director James Comey had &#8220;relieved &#8216;great pressure&#8217; on him.&#8221; The meeting at the White House was held the day after Comey&#8217;s ousting.
Here&#8217;s the Times report:
<blockquote>
&#8220;I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,&#8221; Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. &#8220;I faced great pressure because of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russiaandtheformersovietunion/index.html?inline=nyt-geo">Russia</a>. That&#8217;s taken off.&#8221; Mr. Trump added, &#8220;I&#8217;m not under investigation.&#8221;
</blockquote>
While the Times attributed the account to a &#8220;White House document&#8230;based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office,&#8221; confirmed by two sources, the White House didn&#8217;t bother to deny it &#8211; Sean Spicer &#8220;did not dispute the account.&#8221; Instead, he stated that Comey had &#8220;put unnecessary pressure on the president&#8217;s ability to conduct diplomacy with Russia on such matters as Syria, Ukraine and the Islamic State.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s Spicer:
<blockquote>
By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia&#8217;s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia. The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.
</blockquote>
Spicer isn&#8217;t wrong that these leaks continue to jeopardize the health of the Trump administration. It&#8217;s unclear how Comey had impacted relations between Trump and Russia, given that he had merely testified about the continuation of an ongoing investigation.
This is the second questionable remark attributed to Trump during this short conversation with the Russians; earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that Trump had spilled classified information to the Russians that put an Israeli resource in danger.
Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russia-probe-reaches-current-white-house-official-people-familiar-with-the-case-say/2017/05/19/7685adba-3c99-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.91a97c45630e">The Washington Post</a> reports that a &#8220;current White House official&#8221; is a &#8220;significant person of interest&#8221; in the probe on Russia and Trump. The Post &#8211; once again, citing anonymous sources &#8211; said that the person was &#8220;someone close to the president&#8221; and that the investigation would continue to focus on former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort as well. The report also states that subpoenas will be coming as the investigation escalates. This story will only confirm administration concerns about the &#8220;deep state&#8221; attempt to sink the legitimacy of the White House.

TWO MORE BOMBSHELLS: ‘Current White House Official’ Under Investigation, Trump Told Russians Comey Ouster Relieved ‘Great Pressure’ On Him

Donald Trump

Sergei Lavrov

Sergey Kislyak

According to <a href="v">Reuters</a>, after Donald Trump was elected president on November 8, Michael Flynn and Sergei Kislyak, Russia&#8217;s ambassador to the United States, discussed &#8220;establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy.&#8221;
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&#8217;s campaign and Russia say that Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump&#8217;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 <a href="https://apnews.com/323f28f7f5e242498f43e4a7188336bc/trumps-election-boosts-kremlin-hopes-better-relations">denied it</a>. It was later confirmed that <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/sessions-met-russian-ambassador-didn-t-mislead-senate-spokeswoman-n727966">Senator Jeff Sessions</a>, who was close to the campaign but had no official role with it, had met with Kislyak twice.

EXPLOSIVE: Report Alleges Flynn And Kislyak Discussed Bypassing National Security

Jeff Sessions

Michael Flynn

Russia

After an evening of absolute confusion surrounding a Washington Post story alleging that President Trump spilled highly classified details surrounding an ISIS plot to Russia, thereby endangering intelligence sources, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster stepped to the podium to attempt to quell the controversy.
Last night, McMaster suggested that the Washington Post story was &#8220;false,&#8221; and said that Trump had not revealed any intelligence sources or methods &#8212; neither of which was alleged by the Washington Post. But McMaster was careful not to deny that Trump had revealed classified information to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
On Tuesday morning, McMaster clarified his story. Now, McMaster said, he was simply saying that Trump didn&#8217;t reveal any information that created danger in any way. &#8220;I stand by my statement that I made yesterday,&#8221; McMaster said. &#8220;What I&#8217;m saying is that the premise of that article is false, that the president had any kind of conversation that was inappropriate or that there was a lapse in national security at all.&#8221; He then said Trump &#8220;wasn&#8217;t briefed on the source of the information&#8230; The president wasn&#8217;t even aware of where this information came from.&#8221;
This a different argument than the one made by the White House on Monday night: instead of denying that Trump had revealed classified information, now the argument is that it just wasn&#8217;t inappropriate or important. This new defense raises several more questions and issues, unfortunately:
<ul>
<li>If Trump didn&#8217;t say anything inappropriate, why not just declassify the transcript of the conversation with the Russians?</li>
<li>If Trump isn&#8217;t aware something is classified, isn&#8217;t that slightly more problematic than if he purposefully dropped classified information he found unimportant?</li>
<li>If the information was unimportant this time, that still does not answer the broader question as to whether Trump knew it was unimportant, or whether Trump will drop more important information in the future.</li>
<li>If nothing bad happened, why did the Homeland Security Advisor reportedly contact the CIA and NSA to clean up after Trump?</li>
<li>Why didn&#8217;t McMaster just say this last night, rather than give a vaguely-worded statement, then waiting for Trump to tweet something and following up on it?</li>
</ul>
The media may be out over its skis on the information Trump gave the Russians &#8212; perhaps it was entirely innocuous. But it&#8217;s difficult to tell when the story keeps changing, and when we don&#8217;t know what the information was.

McMaster: Trump Didn’t Do Anything ‘Inappropriate’ In Russian Conversation, No ‘Lapse In National Security’

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster

After last night&#8217;s Washington Post blockbuster story alleging that President Trump dropped highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during their highly-publicized meeting last week, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said that the story, as reported, was false; so did Dina Powell, the deputy National Security Advisor; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a half-rebuttal, stating that &#8220;the nature of specific threats were discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods or military operations.&#8221; As I mentioned last night, McMaster&#8217;s statement was deliberately worded to deny aspects of the Washington Post story that did not exist &#8211; namely, to mirror Tillerson&#8217;s statement, even though the Post story didn&#8217;t allege that Trump had revealed sources, methods, or military operations.
This morning, President Trump took to Twitter again.
And once again, members of his administration look foolish. Here&#8217;s Trump:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining&#8230;.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/864436162567471104">May 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8230;to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS &amp; terrorism.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/864438529472049152">May 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
This is about as close to a confirmation of The Washington Post story as Trump could tweet. Trump is, of course, infamous for his use of the phrase &#8220;fake news.&#8221; It doesn&#8217;t appear here. Trump doesn&#8217;t deny any aspect of The Washington Post story at all, actually &#8211; he just says that he had the right to do it (true) and that it was a good idea (no way of knowing). (UPDATE: The White House is now denying that Trump&#8217;s tweets mean that he&#8217;s confirming The Washington Post story. That&#8217;s not particularly credible in light of Trump&#8217;s tweets, which as the White House constantly says, speak for themselves.)
But just as Trump did last week, he undercut the public position of multiple high-ranking members of his own administration in order to take public relations into his own hands. Last week, he made fools of his vice president and press secretary by trotting them out to claim that FBI director James Comey was fired on the advice of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, then telling NBC&#8217;s Lester Holt that he was going to fire Comey anyway and deliberately mentioning Russia. This week, he&#8217;s deployed his team to deny The Washington Post report, then tacitly admitted its contents.
Trump&#8217;s continuing ability to shred the credibility of those who are supposed to be able to speak for him means that he remains the sole source of information from the White House. And that means that he&#8217;s going to be answering every question, since nobody will believe his surrogates. It even means that people are going to start trusting media again &#8211; an awful development given the fact that they, too, err and lie for political purposes.
But most important, Trump&#8217;s newest tweets will open the door to more questions about Trump&#8217;s handling of classified information, just as last week&#8217;s interview opened the door to more questions about his firing of Comey. Trump may be doing all of this out of ignorance of how the job works, but ignorance isn&#8217;t going to save him from the dogs of the media and the Democrats if he can&#8217;t come up with some more plausible answers.
Meanwhile, the Republican legislative agenda stalls.
Ugh.

BREAKING: After Team Trump Denies Trump Shared Classified Information With Russia, Trump Tweets That He Did ‘Share With Russia’

Employees of The Washington Post erupted in applause when they learned of the widespread reading of an anonymously-sourced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html">Monday-published article</a> entitled, &#8220;Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador,&#8221; accusing President Donald Trump of compromising sensitive intelligence regarding the Islamic State during a meeting with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister.

Glenn Kessler, a &#8220;fact-checker&#8221; at The Washington Post, <a href="https://twitter.com/GlennKesslerWP/status/864231063295582209">noted the celebration</a> at his employer&#8217;s newsroom, comparing it with the news media&#8217;s push of the &#8220;October Surprise&#8221; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_Billy_Bush_recording">2005 Hollywood Access video</a> during 2016&#8217;s presidential campaign season:

<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt height="416" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/glenn_kessler_tweet.jpg" width="780" /></div>

The aforementioned article features an infographic resembling a family tree-style flowchart from the Mafia Commission trial, hyping the narrative of Trump as an operative of political subversion in conspiracy with or compromised by the Russian state:

<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt height="531" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/wapo_russia_infographic.jpg" width="780" /></div>
Also on Monday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-russia-classified-information-isis.html">The New York Times</a> claimed to confirm The Washington Post&#8216;s report, also citing anonymous sources in an article entitled, &#8220;Trump Revealed Highly Classified Intelligence to Russia, in Break With Ally, Officials Say.&#8221;

In January, The Washington Post adopted a new slogan featured on its published newspapers and website: &#8220;Democracy Dies in Darkness:&#8221;

<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt height="101" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/washington_post_democracy_dies_darkness-4.jpg" width="444" /></div>

The Washington Post and The New York Times present themselves as politically objective and non-partisan news media outlets. Both enjoy business relationships with cable news networks as well as ABC, CBS, and NBC.


H/T <a href="https://twitter.com/mzhemingway/status/864271061763936256">Mollie Hemingway</a> of The Federalist and Fox News Channel.
Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

glenn_kessler_tweet

WaPo Newsroom Celebrates ‘Russia-Leak Scoop’ Going Viral

Fake News

Media

Media Bias

New York Times

Susan Rice <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/-i-leaked-nothing-to-nobody-susan-rice-insists-913714243789">took to MSNBC</a> on Tuesday to deny <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/15057/susan-rice-denies-unmasking-flynn-robert-kraychik">reports</a> that she revealed the identities of Americans surveilled by the federal government in her former capacity as Barack Obama&#8217;s national security advisor. More broadly, she denied that the Obama administration had weaponized intelligence for partisan political advancement.

Speaking with MSNBC&#8217;s Andrea Mitchell, Rice denied partisan politicization of intelligence agencies&#8217; work.

<blockquote>
&#8220;Well Andrea, this is not anything political, has been alleged. The allegation is that somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. That&#8217;s absolutely false.&#8221;
</blockquote>
The &#8220;unmasking&#8221; of American identities whose communications were captured during &#8220;incidental collection&#8221; was necessary, said Rice, in instances where such identities are germane to grasping the importance of the intercepted communications and broader intelligence.

Rice provided a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the occasional necessity of &#8220;unmasking&#8221; American identities captured via &#8220;incidental collection:&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;Let&#8217;s say there was a conversation between two foreigners about a conversation they were having with an American who was proposing to sell to them high-tech bomb-making equipment.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Such &#8220;unmasking,&#8221; added Rice, is only done by intelligence operatives to &#8220;protect the American people&#8221; and &#8220;to do our jobs.&#8221;

Asked by Mitchell if she sought the &#8220;unmasking&#8221; of names of Americans involved with President Donald Trump&#8217;s campaign-turned-transition team, Rice replied with a caveat, &#8220;Absolutely not, for any political purposes.&#8221;

Rice did not deny that she sought the revelation of American identities via &#8220;unmasking&#8221; of persons involved with Trump&#8217;s political teams.

Rice also denied leaking Mike Flynn&#8217;s name to anyone.

Trump&#8217;s claim that he had been &#8220;wiretapped&#8221; was &#8220;absolutely false,&#8221; said Rice. She also denied that any surveillance had been carried out on &#8220;Trump individuals&#8221; at the direction of the Obama administration.

Political and media observers should note that the Obama administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-trump-russia-election-hacking.html">lowered classification levels</a> of intelligence reports connected to Trump&#8217;s political teams, facilitating their selective leaking to left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets. The New York Times reported on March 1:
<blockquote>
In the Obama administration&#8217;s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election &#8212; and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians &#8212; across the government. Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn&#8217;t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.
</blockquote>
Watch Rice&#8217;s interview with Mitchell below.

 
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe height="500" width="635"></iframe></div>
Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

WATCH: Rice Denies She Unmasked Trump Team For Political Purposes, Says She Leaked ‘Nothing To Nobody’

Andrea Mitchell

Devin Nunes

MSNBC

National Security Agency (NSA)

Sergey Kisylak, the Russian ambassador, has been a fixture in the news lately as the Democrats have used his contacts with former national security advisor Mike Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to try and take them out. This raises the following question: who exactly is Kislyak?
Here are seven things you need to know about him.
1. Kislyak originally studied engineering. He is a graduate from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute as well as the Soviet Union&#8217;s Academy of Foreign Trade before working for the Russian foreign ministry.
2. Kislyak has an extensive career working as a Russian diplomat. Here is a <a href="http://www.russianembassy.org/page/ambassador">timeline</a> of his various diplomatic positions leading up to his current role as Russian ambassador:
<blockquote>
Employee of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation since 1977. 
1981-1985 &#8211; Second Secretary of the Permanent Mission of the USSR to the UN in New York. 
1985-1989 &#8211; First Secretary, Counselor of the Embassy of the USSR to the U.S. 
1989-1991 &#8211; Deputy Director of the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. 
1991-1993 &#8211; Deputy Director of the Department of International Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of the USSR/Russia. 
1993-1995 &#8211; Director of the Department of International Scientific and Technical Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of Russia. 
1995-1998 &#8211; Director of the Department of Security Affairs and Disarmament of the Foreign Ministry of Russia. 
1998-2003 &#8211; Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of Belgium and, simultaneously, Permanent Representative of Russia to NATO in Brussels, Belgium 
2003-2008 &#8211; Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
</blockquote>
Kislyak has been the Russian ambassador to the United States since 2008; his focus is on arms control.
3. Kisylak has been rumored to be an intelligence recruiter. This what <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/03/02/what_we_know_about_sergey_kislyak_the_russian_diplomat_who_can_t_stop_meeting.html">U.S. intelligence has long suspected</a>, but the Russians have denied this and have mocked such suggestions as &#8220;American paranoia.&#8221; Former U.S. ambassador Steven Pifer told the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/sergey-kislyak-russian-ambassador-profile-donald-trump">UK Guardian</a> those allegations are &#8220;pretty odd,&#8221; but Alina Polyakova, the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center&#8217;s deputy director, said that &#8220;it&#8217;s certainly possible. During the Soviet days the embassy was known to serve that function.&#8221;
4. As the Russian ambassador, Kisylak has consistently tried to establish a rapport with various people in Washington, D.C. Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/europe/sergey-kislyak-russian-ambassador.html">The New York Times</a> that he &#8220;was impressed by the way he [Kisylak] went about that kind of socializing, the way he went about entertaining, but always with a political objective&#8221; through the various dinners that Krisylak would host. McFaul has even <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-sergey-kislyak/">referred to Krisylak as</a> &#8220;a tremendous friend and colleague to me.&#8221;
5. Kisylak has been a staunch defender of Russia and has at times attempted to undermine America&#8217;s foreign policy. Kisylak&#8217;s jovial and charismatic nature belies his constant defense of his country. He has criticized Barack Obama&#8217;s presidential administration for &#8220;the revival of the Cold War mentality&#8221; as well as the notion of American exceptionalism.
&#8220;The difference between your exceptionalism and ours is that we are not trying to impose on you ours, but you do not hesitate to impose on us yours,&#8221; Kisylak said at an event at Stanford. &#8220;That is something we do not appreciate.&#8221;
Kisylak was responding to a question about the various errors Russia has made in recent years.
McFaul recalled to The New York Times that Kisylak &#8220;was actively pushing to try to find fissures and disagreements among us&#8221; when the Obama administration was holding negotiations with Russia on nuclear arms treaties. Krisylak was also a key figure in obtaining a deal that stopped the U.S. from removing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as well as gaining support from U.S. politicians for the Iran deal.
6. Kisylak seems to have been a frequent visitor to the Obama White House. According to <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/02/russian-ambassador-sergey-kislyak-appeared-as-obama-white-house-visitor-at-least-22-times/">The Daily Caller</a>, Kisylak is on the White House visitor logs &#8220;at least 22 times&#8221; to discuss topics such as trade, nuclear weapons and ISIS.
7. Kisylak has signaled that his tenure as the Russian ambassador to the U.S. may end soon. Per The New York Times, Kisylak has lamented that Washington, D.C. &#8220;has become lonely, and he has told associates that he is surprised how people who once sought his company were now trying to stay away.&#8221; A &#8220;hard-line general&#8221; will likely succeed Kisylak, whose next destination could very well be Russia&#8217;s ambassador to the United Nations.
This article has been modified to correct Sergey Kisylak&#8217;s name.
Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">@bandlersbanter</a>.

7 Things You Need To Know About The Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak

After Democrats spent the week bashing Attorney General Jeff Sessions for saying during his confirmation hearings that he hadn&#8217;t met the Russian ambassador while working for the Trump campaign, President Trump fired back. On Friday, Trump blasted both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) &#8212; both of whom have met the Russian ambassador:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I hereby demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it. <a href="https://t.co/qCDljfF3wN">https://t.co/qCDljfF3wN</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837770149767827456">March 3, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
On Thursday, Schumer had <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/03/02/518120957/gop-house-oversight-chief-calls-for-sessions-to-recuse-on-russia-investigation">called</a> for Sessions to resign, snapping, &#8220;There cannot be even the scintilla of doubt about the impartiality and fairness of the attorney general, the top law enforcement official of the land. Because the Department of Justice should be above reproach, for the good of the country Attorney General Sessions should resign.&#8221;
Pelosi echoed, &#8220;After lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign. Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law enforcement officer of our country and must resign.&#8221;
Yet on Friday, when asked by <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/nancy-pelosi-sergey-kislyak-meeting-235653">Politico</a>&#8216;s Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer if she had ever met with Krislyak, Pelosi replied, &#8220;Not with this Russian ambassador, no.&#8221; But after a file <a href="http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-washington-usa-june-25-2010-russias-foreign-minister-sergei-lavrov-50437641.html?pv=1&amp;stamp=2&amp;imageid=B0369371-06A0-442D-9F09-50BAACA5ABF9&amp;p=224005&amp;n=1&amp;orientation=0&amp;pn=1&amp;searchtype=0&amp;IsFromSearch=1&amp;srch=foo%3Dbar%26st%3D0%26sortby%3D2%26qt%3Dmedvedev%20pelosi%26qt_raw%3Dmedvedev%20pelosi%26qn%3D%26lic%3D3%26mr%3D0%26pr%3D0%26aoa%3D1%26creative%3D%26videos%3D%26nu%3D%26ccc%3D%26bespoke%3D%26apalib%3D%26ag%3D0%26hc%3D0%26et%3D0x000000000000000000000%26vp%3D0%26loc%3D0%26o">photo</a> from Pelosi&#8217;s 2010 meeting with Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev was released, revealing Krislyak at the table across from Pelosi, Pelosi spokeman Drew Hammill amended Pelosi&#8217;s claim, saying she meant she never had a solo meeting with Krislyak. He said, &#8220;Of course, that&#8217;s what she meant. She has never had a private one-on-one with him.&#8221;
On Thursday, Sessions <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/14048/sessions-recuses-himself-trump-russia-robert-kraychik">recused himself</a> from involvement in any Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations related to Donald Trump&#8217;s presidential campaign.

TROLLMASTER: Trump SLAMS Pelosi, Schumer, Calls For Investigations Over Russian Meetings

Charles Schumer

Nancy Pelosi

With the fake news furor over the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was then serving as a senator on the Armed Services Committee, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/sergei-kislyak-russian-ambassador-spoke-jeff-sessions/story?id=45865497">had met</a> with Russian Ambassador Sergey Krislyak twice during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Democrats are noticeably quiet about how often Krislyak visited the White House during Barack Obama&#8217;s tenure as president.
As <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/02/russian-ambassador-sergey-kislyak-appeared-as-obama-white-house-visitor-at-least-22-times/">The Daily Caller</a> reports, the White House logs list Krislyak as visiting the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016. The most recent meeting the ambassador had with the White House occurred in September 2016 with John Holdren, Obama&#8217;s science advisor and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Other Krislyak visits listed in the logs include July 2016, March 2016, January 2016, August 2015, April 2014, February 2014, May 2013, February 2013, November 2012, December 2011, July 2011, December 2010, October 2010, May 2010, April 2010, February 2010, March 2010, December 2009 and September 2009.
In addition to the dates Krislyak was scheduled to visit the White House, the logs include which White House official hosted the visit. Gary Samore, the senior National Security Council official on weapons of mass destruction during Obama&#8217;s first term, hosted Krislyak four times; Robert Malley, Obama&#8217;s senior adviser on defeating the Islamic State, three times; Lawrence Summers, Obama&#8217;s economic adviser, once; and Holdren, twice.
12 other times were listed as Krislyak visits, although those were for events at which between 180 and 3,000 other visitors were also listed.
The logs often reflect scheduled,but unfulfilled appointments; so it is not clear exactly how many of the listed visits Krislyak was present for.

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