Russian Roulette by Michael Isikoff

Author:Michael Isikoff
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Twelve
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

There were few surprises during the official proceedings. Far more intriguing was what was going on behind the scenes. During the week of the convention, several Trump associates met with Sergey Kislyak, the longtime Russian ambassador to the United States, at a conference co-sponsored by the State Department and conservative Heritage Foundation. Sessions delivered the keynote address for that event. Afterward, he chatted with Kislyak and other ambassadors. Subsequently, the Russian ambassador reported back to Moscow that the two had discussed Trump’s positions on policy matters of concern to the Russian government. U.S. intelligence captured Kislyak sharing this news with his superiors back home.

J. D. Gordon and Carter Page also had a chance to chat with Kislyak. At an evening reception that was part of this conference, Kislyak spoke briefly with Gordon, as Page stood by. The discussion, according to Gordon, centered on improving U.S.-Russia ties. “It’s important to have better relations between the U.S. and Russia,” Gordon told the ambassador. “We should cooperate against jihadi networks.” Kislyak, while nibbling on chicken satays, nodded in agreement. So too did Page.

These encounters with Kislyak attracted no public notice at the time. But there was a Russia-related controversy at the convention that did draw attention. And it started the week before during a bitter fight over the party platform’s plank on Ukraine.

The GOP platform committee was holding one of its last meetings in Cleveland to finish up the policy document that would be presented to the delegates at the convention for their approval. Gordon was assigned the task of monitoring the process to ensure that no national security-related amendments at odds with Trump’s positions ended up in the platform.

Enter Diana Denman, a onetime aspiring actress and a veteran Texan GOP activist. She considered herself a proud Reagan Republican and had come to Cleveland as a delegate for Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who had placed a distant second to Trump in the nomination battle. In 1998, Denman had served as an election observer in Ukraine, and since then she had identified with the democratic (and anti-Russian) forces in that country.

As a member of the platform committee’s national security subcommittee, she introduced an amendment condemning “Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine.” Her measure called for maintaining and possibly intensifying sanctions against Russia. And it proposed “providing lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine’s Armed Forces.” (Ukraine had been asking the United States for arms. Despite support from some officials in the Pentagon, Obama had rejected the idea and favored sending nonlethal assistance.)

Immediately, Denman could tell something was wrong. Two men who were watching from the side quickly stood up and headed over to Steve Yates, the head of the Idaho GOP who was cochairing the national security subcommittee, and began discussing the language of her amendment.

Denman joined the group and asked, “Who are you? What’s the problem?” One of the men was Gordon. Are you a staffer? Denman asked. No, he said, he was with the Trump campaign. The wording of her amendment, Gordon told her, had to be “cleared.

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