2016 ELECTION/LEGAL/RUSSIA/STEVE BANNON/TRUMP FAMILY/JARED KUSHNER: “In a new book detailing the wild first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is quoted blasting top operatives in the 2016 campaign for their naivete and idiocy in their dealings with the Russians…
Of the July 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and several Russians — in which dirt on Hillary Clinton had been promised to the campaign — Bannon tells author Michael Wolff, according to the Guardian, which obtained an early copy of the book: ‘The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor — with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.’…
Whether or not anything actually happened — Don Jr. insists the meeting was brief and uneventful — the sheer appearance that such a gathering conveys is a very bad one. Particularly when you consider that two former Trump aides have already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign.”
-Chris Cillizza, “Steve Bannon is 100% right about Russia and the Trump campaign,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 3, 2018 12:02pm