Court documents filed Friday revealed previously unreported communication from Russian nationals with at least 14 Trump associates during the 2016 presidential campaign, yet none of those interactions disclosed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team prove there was specific coordination between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow, reports The Washington Post.
Russians were reaching out to Trump’s campaign team as early as November 2015, almost six months after Trump announced his candidacy.
That month, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen spoke with a Russian national who claimed to be a “trusted person” in Russia who could offer Trump’s campaign “political synergy” and “synergy on a government level.”
There is "no bigger warranty in any project than the consent of" Russian President Vladimir Putin, the person told Cohen, referring to Trump’s proposed tower in Moscow.
Cohen didn’t follow up, according to prosecutors.
Another Russian – former Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov – spoke with Cohen regarding the tower, as well. Klokov connected with Cohen after his wife reached out to Ivanka Trump saying she could help her father build a Trump Tower in Russia, but Cohen didn’t pursue a meeting because he believed he had better connections, per the Post.
The documents filed also allege Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, lied about his communications with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukranian political consultant with ties to the Russian military intelligence unit accused of hacking the Democrats during the election.
The Post details additional communications between Russians and Donald Trump Jr., Jeff Sessions, Carter Page, Jared Kushner and George Papadopoulos.