WASHINGTON: A second foreign policy
adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential
campaign has admitted to
contacts with Russian officials during last year’s election and to having proposed that
Trump travel to
Russia during the campaign.
Former investment banker and
Russia expert Carter Page told the House Intelligence Committee last week that he had "brief" contact with a Russian deputy prime minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, during a "private" trip to Moscow in July 2016, according to a transcript of his testimony released late on Monday.
Page also said that he had proposed in May 2016 that Donald
Trump travel to
Russia to meet officials and make a speech.
That was the same month that another foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, also suggested a
Trump Moscow visit, according to court documents last week.
The Page testimony added to the mounting evidence of numerous
contacts between Trump’s presidential
campaign and
Russia in 2016 just at the time Moscow was mounting a hacking and disinformation operation aimed and boosting Trump’s chances to win the White House.
The House committee and its Senate counterpart, along with a justice department special prosecutor, are investigating whether the
campaign colluded with the Russians in any way to help defeat then-front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Page told the committee in a closed-door hearing last Thursday that he was an unpaid volunteer on Trump’s initial foreign policy advisory team, never met or spoke directly to Trump, and had no inappropriate
contacts in Russia.
But in questioning he admitted
contacts with Dvorkovich, other officials, businessmen and senior academics while in the country on trips in July and December.
He said he had told Jeff Sessions, now US attorney general but at the time in 2016 the leader of the foreign policy team, that he was planning the Moscow trip to lecture at a university which invited him.
Upon returning, he suggested to senior
campaign officials in an email that he had done more than that.
"I’ll send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here," he wrote.
Page’s
Russia contacts paralleled those of Papadopoulos, who, according to the FBI, wrote a number of emails to senior
Trump campaign officials between March and September last year about his own Russian
contacts and proposed
Trump travel to Moscow.
Nothing came of either proposal, and White House officials say both Page and Papadopoulos were insignificant aides on the
campaign with few responsibilities or input.
Last week Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his
Russia contacts during 2016.
In his testimony, Page strongly downplayed his role on the campaign. He told the committee that he never "met" Trump, and had never spoken to him "directly".
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