CNN’s Jake Tapper Details Astounding List Of Trump's Troubling Connections To Russia
“If you were in the FBI, you think there might be something worth taking a look at there?” the CNN newsman asked.
CNN’s Jake Tapper offered a chilling summary on Monday of several troubling links between President Donald Trump, his presidential campaign and Russia — and “that’s just a sampling,” he noted.
Tapper reviewed some of what the American public knows so far in the wake of bombshell reports from both The New York Times and The Washington Post. According to the Times, the FBI was so alarmed about Trump’s history and his firing of former FBI Director James Comey that it launched an investigation, fearing the president may have been secretly working on behalf of the Kremlin — wittingly or otherwise.
The Post reported that Trump has gone to “extraordinary” lengths to hide details of his private meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even seizing the notes of his own interpreter.
Other concerns Tapper cited include Trump’s public challenge to Russia during his presidential campaign to find rival Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, apparently offering encouragement to a foreign power to hack into an American’s communication, which could have included classified information. Democratic Party emails were hacked shortly thereafter by an operation linked to the Kremlin.
Trump also hired Paul Manafort, who had close ties to pro-Russian Ukrainians and a Russian oligarch linked to Putin. Manafort, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, son Donald Trump Jr. and others later met at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Clinton. Trump also boasted about firing Comey in an Oval Office meeting with Russian officials.
Trump declared Monday that he “never worked for Russia” and told a reporter outside the White House that it’s a “disgrace that you even asked that question — because it’s a whole big fat hoax.”
Still, Tapper asked: “If you were in the FBI, you think there might be something worth taking a look at there?”
