Rachel Maddow dug into new court filings on Tuesday to uncover what she calls “a whole new element of the Trump–Russia scandal.”
According to the MSNBC host, Trump ally Erik Prince might not be the only person connected to the president who had a secret meeting with Vladimir Putin‘s “money guy,” Kirill Dmitriev.
Maddow pointed out that incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn may have met with him too.
“If this is true, this is a whole new element of the Trump–Russia scandal we didn’t know about,” the MSNBC host said. “This is a whole new contact between the Trump campaign and the Trump transition and the Kremlin that we didn’t know about before.”
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“Why would the Trump transition at the highest levels be secretly communicating with the guy who runs Russia‘s sovereign wealth fund for Putin?” Maddow asked.
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Rachel Maddow reports on what she calls “a whole new element of the Trump–Russia scandal.” #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/R8rDUTboZW
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) March 20, 2019
Maddow said:
Trump‘s national security adviser had contacts with that guy, too? The money guy close to Putin who everybody’s been lying about talking to? We’ve never heard this allegation before. We know that Dmitriev went out of his way to publicly praise Mike Flynn during the transition. He praised him for Flynn’s willingness to have an open dialogue with Russia. But as far as we can tell from public reporting, there were never any known contacts between Mike Flynn and this Russian guy. There were never even any public allegations that they had had any contact. Now, I should say this is just an assertion by Bijan Kian’s lawyers in a criminal case. Asserting it is not the same thing as proving it in court. They might be wrong. We may find out further in these trial proceedings … that this is something that isn’t true and they’re just blowing smoke, but if it is true, if Trump‘s incoming national security adviser was also meeting with this guy close to Putin who’s this money guy for the Russian investment fund who was also meeting with Erik Prince and Erik Prince wasn’t exactly forthcoming about that when he was asked about it, even under oath. If this is true, this is a whole new element of the Trump–Russia scandal we didn’t know about. This is a whole new contact between the Trump campaign and the Trump transition and the Kremlin that we didn’t know about before. Why would the Trump transition at the highest levels be secretly communicating with the guy who runs Russia‘s sovereign wealth fund for Putin?
Mueller knows much more than the public does
Rachel Maddow‘s reporting on Tuesday is just the latest reminder that, while the public has learned a lot about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia – and other potential crimes committed by the president, his campaign and his associates – Robert Mueller likely knows much more.
After all, we now know based on new reporting that Mueller obtained a search warrant targeting Michael Cohen‘s emails nearly a year before the FBI raided his home and office.
In other words, Mueller has seemingly been one step ahead of everybody throughout this entire investigation.
And while the public may not have access to Mueller’s findings (yet), it’s likely that he knows much more about potential Trump crimes than the public does – and the public already knows a lot.
It’s no wonder that Trump, as the special counsel investigation begins to wind down, is becoming increasingly unglued.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
