DEMS/GOP/LEGAL/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Six months after the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Trump campaign officials and a self-described Kremlin informant, an intermediary contacted Donald J. Trump’s office asking for a follow-up, according to documents released on Wednesday [5-16-18] by a Senate committee…The follow-up overture is one of the kernels of new information contained in more than 2,000 pages of testimony and exhibits released by the committee, which has been conducting one of the investigations into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians. The release of the records showed how far Republicans and Democrats on the committee have diverged since they first began the bipartisan inquiry last summer. Republicans, who control the committee, declined to draw conclusions from their work, but described the documents as ‘the most complete public picture’ yet that would allow Americans to determine what happened based on ‘unfiltered information.’ Democrats offered a starkly different assessment, repeatedly asserting that the investigation had been ‘limited’ by Republicans more interested in accusations of F.B.I. misconduct than Russian interference. Too many questions remain unanswered to draw conclusions, they said.”
-Sharon LaFraniere and Nicholas Fandos, “Thousands of Pages of Documents on Trump Tower Meeting Are Released,” The New York Times online, May 16, 2018