CNN has a new story stating that AG Jeff Sessions did not disclose at least two meetings with Russian officials not only at his confirmation hearings but also when applying for his security clearance. He amended his Senate confirmation testimony but only mentioned TWO meetings:
He then amended his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony to note the two reported interactions he had with Kislyak. In the amended testimony, the former Alabama senator said he spoke "briefly" in July 2016 to the Russian ambassador during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He also said that he spoke with the Russian ambassador in September 2016 in his Senate office with his staff members. He said he did not initially list those meetings because he did not think they were relevant to the questions asked during the confirmation proceedings. CNN
That article mentions a DOJ spokesman stating that those two meetings were Senate official business. However, what CNN ignores (and doesn't explore) is Trump’s big Mayflower Hotel Foreign Policy speech April 26, 2017.
The Independent ran an article on this emphasizing the unreported contact between Trump and Kislyak:
The meeting between the two men took place while Mr Trump was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on 27 April, 2016.
Mr Kislyak was said to have been seated in one of the front rows for the then-Republic candidate’s speech. March 7, 2017
That article mentioned Kislyak met with “many members of Trump’s team” without mentioning Sessions specifically.
However another story, this one by ABC News confirms that Sessions was there as well:
Trump’s speech in the hotel ballroom offered an early look at the candidate’s approach to foreign policy. In addition to the Russian ambassador, then-Sen. Sessions was also in the audience. At the time, Sessions was serving as a senior campaign advisor.
“I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia – from a position of strength – is possible,” Trump said in the speech.
About the same time as those two reports, fellow Kossack Keith Pickering wrote a diary summarizing a series of tweets by Seth Abramson. Abramson which set out his theory of the Russian oil deal involving Carter Page and Jared Kushner but that's a bit involved for purposes of this diary. However Abramson emphasizes this meeting as it includes other ambassadors of countries involved in the Russian oil deal as well, and Sessions was part and parcel of this, along with the man of many chins Kilsyak.
What’s important is that the press, for whatever reason, is now not reporting nor questioning this Mayflower Hotel meeting which had nothing to do with Sessions’ Senate work but was all about the campaign.
Huffpo also reported this:
Sessions appears to have left out a third instance in which they crossed paths.
In April of 2016, Sessions attended a VIP reception at a hotel in Washington, D.C., with President Donald Trump and roughly two dozen guests, including four ambassadors. One of them was Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The cocktail meet-and-greet took place in a private room at the Mayflower Hotel near the White House. Shortly thereafter, Trump delivered a foreign policy speech in the hotel’s ballroom, where he called for improved U.S.-Russia relations. Kislyak was seated in the front row.
While Huffpo states it's unclear if they spoke, what is clear is they were both at the speech and at the meet and greet. Huffpo asked Session’s office about this but got no response.
Jeff Heilbrunn wrote about this meet and greet in Politico:
Speaking for myself, after briefly meeting Trump at a reception in the Senate Room of the Mayflower, where a number of politicians and Trump advisers, such as Senator Jeff Sessions and ambassadors, congregated before the event, I can’t claim any kind of conversion experience. Trump certainly knows how to put everyone at ease. He bounded into the room with a hearty “Hello, everybody!” Politico
I'm on my phone visiting family and my phone is tiny and my eyes are failing so please excuse any typos etc and I if any other diaries or stories have been reported on this.
It just seems that this one meeting, if it can be confirmed, would blow Session’s narrative of no meetings as a Trump advisor out of the water.