Sam Clovis, the former top Trump campaign official who supervised a man now cooperating with the FBI's Russia investigation, was questioned last week by special counsel Robert Mueller's team and testified before the investigating grand jury, a person with first-hand knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
Clovis, who is President Donald Trump's pick to be the Department of Agriculture's chief scientist, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Victoria Toensing, would neither confirm nor deny his interactions with the Mueller team.
The court documents unsealed Monday describe emails between Papadopoulos and an unnamed "campaign supervisor." The supervisor responded "Great work" after Papadopoulos discussed his interactions with Russians who wanted to arrange a meeting with Trump and Russian leaders.
Toensing confirmed that Clovis was the campaign supervisor in the emails. Clovis, a former Air Force officer and Pentagon official who unsuccessfully ran for Iowa State Treasurer in 2014, was the Trump campaign's chief policy adviser and national co-chairman.
Well now isn't THAT interesting?
So here is yet another top level campaign official who not only knew that there were conversations with the Russians, but considered those interactions "great work."
We all learned late yesterday why the FBI has former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort under strict house arrest.
The man has three passports:
Manafort currently has three US passports, each under a different number. He has submitted 10 passport applications in roughly as many years, prosecutors said.
This year, Manafort traveled to Mexico, China and Ecuador with a phone and email account registered under a fake name. (The name was not disclosed in the filings.)
What's more that guy has either has 28 million or 63 million, depending on which application you go by.
So yeah, he's a flight risk.
So how is all of this going over in the Trump White House?
Not well it seems.
Courtesy of Vanity Fair:
Although the White House had been anticipating charges in Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt” for months, news that one former adviser, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty, and begun working with the F.B.I., exploded like a bomb. Rising before dawn and gluing himself to his television, Trump at first felt vindicated by the charges against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, which were seemingly unconnected to Russia. “NO COLLUSION!” he tweeted triumphantly, after he spoke with his lawyers. Others were reportedly relieved that the first batch of indictments did not include Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. (Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty.)
But the president’s mood darkened after hearing that Papadopoulos had, apparently, turned state’s witness. “The walls are closing in,” one senior Republican in close contact with top staffers told the Post, echoing other sources who described Trump as angry and agitated. “Everyone is freaking out.” The New York Times reported that White House aides were “stunned and alarmed.”
I swear there is not enough popcorn in the world to cover all of this.
Source http://ift.tt/2zoYYI0
