A senior Russian diplomat, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov, told Interfax news there was contact with Donald Trump’s team. “This could reopen scrutiny of the Kremlin’s role in the president-elect’s bitter race against Hillary Clinton,” claims the Washington Post. On Friday, WaPo quoted Rybakov in their story.
“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Ryabkov said. “We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
Of course, Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks immediately denied Ryabkov’s allegation and said the campaign had “no contact with Russian officials” before this week’s Election Day. Really? No contact?
Ryabkov’s statement does not come as a great surprise and some U.S. officials have believed the Kremlin sought to influence the 2016 election in ”unprecedented ways.”
Washington, for instance, accused the Kremlin of orchestrating hacks into the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that led to politically embarrassing disclosures by WikiLeaks. Trump faced criticism during the campaign for his positive statements about Russian President Vladimir Putin and for other Russia-friendly policy stances, although he repeatedly denied having financial or other ties to Moscow.
Suspicions of Trump’s links to Russia have often made traditional and social media news from very early on in the POTUS race. The relationship between Trump and Putin has been mocked in memes for just as long. What is it’s still unclear is whether Trump has had investments in Russia — mostly because the reality star, turned president-elect, refuses to release his tax records. It is known that he made millions by taking his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013. WaPo adds in 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” adding that “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Several Trump advisers also have had well-publicized ties to Russia, including his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who managed an investment fund for a Russian aluminum magnate with close ties to Putin. Manafort resigned from the campaign days after his name was found in a ledger designating funds to be paid out from the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in a pro-European street revolution in 2014.
We all saw how Russian officials cheered over Trump’s victory and Vladimir Putin was one of the first to congratulate Trump. That’s all fine and good. Love the one you’re with. But if there is any chance the Kremlin/WikiLeaks interfered with America’s electronic balloting in this election, all parties in the U.S. government have a duty to investigate.
Read the Washington Post’s full article HERE.