Just as the president's Twitter account celebrates a favorable announcement from "THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE" about collusion, a new book claims former campaign aide George Papadopoulos in 2016 received direct word from Donald Trump to secure a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the same month that Trump racked up key Republican primary victories in Florida, Illinois and Missouri, the former foreign policy adviser told Trump during a meeting on March 31, 2016, that he had a way in which he could set up a summit between the former "Celebrity Apprentice" host and the former KGB officer, Yahoo News reports.
According to the book, Trump found the prospect of talks with Putin "interesting" and encouraged Papadopoulos to try to arrange the meeting.
"Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," by Yahoo News' Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones' David Corn, states this information was provided by Papadopoulos directly to federal investigators as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
Papadopoulos became the first witness to make a deal with Mueller after pleading guilty in October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI.
After news broke of his deal, Trump tweeted, "Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar," despite there being video of the then-candidate himself personally introducing Papadopoulos in a March 2016 meeting with the Washington Post editorial board as "an energy and oil consultant" and an "excellent guy."
Additionally, "Russian Roulette" details an incident that would perhaps precipitate the creation of Mueller's investigation.
After receiving a two-page summary of the contents of the Steele dossier _ a collection of memos by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government _ and sitting through a briefing about Russia, the then-president-elect reacted by believing he was getting blackmailed by then-FBI Director James Comey.
"It's a shakedown," Trump reportedly said.
Authors Isikoff and Corn suggest this could've contributed to his decision to fire Comey, which in turn brought about the still ongoing investigation of possible ties between Trump's campaign and Russian officials.
