NO RESISTANCE:

[W]hile Mueller's team toils away in secrecy, investigative reporters have also been digging over the past year and they repeatedly unearth new information that shows a clear pattern of Russian officials approaching various members of the Trump campaign and being met with open arms.

First, there's Donald Trump Jr. After being offered dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Russian official in June 2016, Trump Jr. responded, "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer." Following that exchange, Trump Jr. set up a meeting in Trump Tower with a "Russian government attorney" and others with suspected ties to the Russian government. The meeting was also attended by Paul Manafort, a long-time associate of Trump and who was at the time the Trump campaign's chairman, and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. When it became clear the New York Times was going to publicly disclose that the meeting took place, the president himself helped concoct a cover-up story, which was given to the Times.

Next, you've got George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the campaign. [...]

Whatever his position, Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that the Russians had political dirt on Clinton. When Australian officials passed this information on to the U.S. government, it triggered the FBI to open its investigation into Russian interference and whether the Trump campaign played any role in it. Papadopoulos' plea agreement revealed how enthusiastically Papadopoulos was pursuing a relationship with the Kremlin on behalf of the Trump campaign; how a top Trump campaign official encouraged him in this endeavor, and how he later lied to FBI investigators about these interactions in an effort to cover them up.

Not to be overlooked is Manafort, whose true role in all of this is yet to be revealed. But we do know his ties to Kremlin-linked oligarchs stretched way back and was at the center of his years of work in Ukraine. While working on the Trump campaign, Manafort reportedly told an intermediary that "private briefings" could be arranged for his former client and Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

There's also Kushner, who in December, discussed setting up "a secret and secure communications channel between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin." And multiple reports indicate that Flynn's calls with Kislyak were at the direction of Kushner. And there is his national security questionnaire -- known as an SF-86 -- which Kushner has had to update multiple times because he failed to disclose multiple foreign contacts, including with Russian officials during the campaign. It wasn't until Kushner filed a second addendum that he disclosed the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Finally, there's Carter Page, who also served as a foreign policy adviser on the Trump campaign. In 2013, Page had been targeted by Russian spies working in New York City and was eventually confronted about his interactions with them by the FBI. In the spring of 2016, Trump named Page as one of his few foreign policy advisers in an interview with the Washington Post. While working for the campaign in July 2016, Page traveled to Moscow and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and Andrey Baranov, Rosneft's head of investor relations. And as the Nunes memo revealed, the FBI obtained permission from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on Page not once, but four times, starting in October 2016. This means the Justice Department had to demonstrate probable cause to think that Page was "knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of" Russia.

The pattern is quite clear: When Russian officials approached Trump campaign members, they were all too happy to oblige them: They took secret meetings with them; they offered information; they expressed enthusiasm at Russia's offer to help them win the election. So, now we know Russian intelligence was taking every opportunity it could to infiltrate the campaign. And we also know that it met little resistance in its efforts to do so.

 

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia remains open to cooperation with Washington even though President Donald Trump's political foes in the U.S. have tried to prevent him from fulfilling his campaign promises.

Asked at a forum of foreign policy experts if Russia is annoyed with Trump's unpredictability, Putin said that it's linked to a "strong resistance inside the country."

Russia rejoiced at Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. election, but its hopes for repairing ties with his administration have been shattered by congressional and FBI investigations into the Trump campaign's ties with Russia.

Speaking at the Valdai forum in Sochi, Putin said Trump's political adversaries "haven't allowed him to fulfill any of his election platforms and plans."

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