Then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, and campaign advisers Carter Page and J. D. Gordon meet with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
In March 2017 after knowledge of the meeting is made public, Sessions is pressured to recuse himself from investigations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It’s unknown what the Trump campaign officials who spoke with the ambassador – J.D. Gordon and Carter Page – discussed with him. Those who took part in the events in Cleveland said it is not unusual for presidential campaign teams to interact with diplomats.
However, the newly-revealed communications further contradict months of repeated denials by Trump officials that his campaign had contact with officials representing the Russian government.
USA Today
Page is an energy consultant and foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. He lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007, where he worked for a firm on deals for Gazprom, the energy giant in business with Putin friend and crime ring leader Semion Mogilevich. In 2008, Page founded a U.S. investment fund called Global Energy Capital with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatsenko. In April 2013, he wrote a letter to an academic publisher boasting about his previous work as an adviser to the Kremlin. Sometime in 2014, the FBI received a warrant to monitor Page under suspicions that he was a victim of Russian intelligence targeting.
Sources
https://themoscowproject.org/collusion/trump-campaign-officials-meet-russian-ambassador-republican-convention/
https://www.justsecurity.org/46786/timeline-carter-pages-contacts-russia/
Photo: Gage Skidmore