INTELLIGENCE/NATIONAL SECURITY/RUSSIA/TRUMP FAMILY/JARED KUSHNER: “There may yet be an innocent explanation for all the conversations coming to light between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the government of Russia. But the way Trump and his team have responded to questions about the contacts sure hasn’t made them look innocent. Quite the contrary.
It all begins with Trump himself, who bragged in 2013 that he was close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but now claims he has had no contact with Moscow at all — or at least (in a particularly weird denial) that he hasn’t made a phone call to Russia in 10 years.
Also suspicious: the Trump aides who secretly inserted a Russia-friendly plank in the Republican Party platform last summer, only to deny later that they had done any such thing…
And there’s Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, who attended a meeting with Moscow’s ambassador — a fact the White House neglected to mention until it was reported by the New Yorker.”
– Doyle McManus, “Who’s responsible for driving the Trump-Russia story? Trump, of course,” The Los Angeles Times online, March 5, 2017