Members of the Trump Campaign interacted on several occasions with the Center for theNational Interest (CNI) (click here),...
Board of Directors (click here)
Henry Kissinger, Honorary Chairman
Maurice R. Greenberg, Chairman Emeritus
General Charles Boyd, Chairman
Drew Guff, Vice Chairman
Richard Plepler, Vice Chairman
Dov Zakheim, Vice Chairman
Senator Pat Roberts
Graham Allison
Jeffrey Bewkes
Ambassador Richard Burt
Kris Elftmann
Leslie Gelb
David Keene
Admiral Michael Mullen
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Grover Norquist
William Ruger
Paul J. Saunders
Dimitri K. Simes
J. Robinson West
David Zalaznick
...principally through its President and Chief Executive Officer, Dimitri Simes....
Dimitri K. Simes (click here) is President and CEO of the Center for the National Interest and Publisher of its foreign policy magazine, The National Interest. Mr. Simes was selected to lead the Center by former President Richard Nixon, to whom he served as an informal foreign policy advisor and with whom he traveled regularly to Russia and other former Soviet states, as well as Western and Central Europe....
... CNI is a think tank with expertise in and connections to the Russian government. Simes was born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States in the 1970s. In April 2016, candidate Trump delivered his first speech on foreign policy and national security at an event hosted by the National Interest, a publication affiliated with CNI. Then-Senator Jeff Sessions and Russian Ambassador Kislyak both attended the event and, as a result, it gained some attention in relation to Sessions's confirmation hearings to become Attorney General. Sessions had various other contacts with CNI during the campaign period on foreign-policy matters, including Russia. Jared Kushner also interacted with Simes about Russian issues during the campaign. The investigation did not identify evidence that the Campaign passed or received any messages to or from the Russian government through CNI or Simes.
a. CNI and Dimitri Simes Connect with the Trump Campaign
CNI is a Washington-based non-profit organization that grew out of a center founded by former President Richard Nixon. 593 CNI describes itself "as a voice for strategic realism in U.S. foreign policy," and publishes a bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, the National Interest.594 CNI is overseen by a board of directors and an advisory council that is largely honorary and whose members at the relevant time included Sessions, who served as an advisor to candidate Trump on national security and foreign policy issues.595
Dimitri Simes is president and CEO of CNI and the publisher and CEO of the National Jnterest.596 Simes was born in the former Soviet Union, emigrated to the United States in the early 1970s, and joined CNI' s predecessor after working at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.597 Simes personally has many contacts with current and former Russian government officials,598 as does CNI collectively. As CNI stated when seeking a grant from the Carnegie Corporation in 2015, CNI has "unparalleled access to Russian officials and politicians among Washington think tanks," 599 in part because CNI has arranged for U.S. delegations to visit Russia and for Russian delegations to visit the United States as part of so-called "Track 11" diplomatic efforts.600
Example of Track II diplomatic efforts:
"Talking to the Enemy: Track II and It's Significance in Afghanistan" (click here)
...On March 14, 2016, CNI board member Richard Plepler organized a luncheon for CNI and its honorary chairman, Henry Kissinger, at the Time Warner Building in New York.601 The idea behind the event was to generate interest in CNI's work and recruit new board members for CNI.602 Along with Simes, attendees at the event included Jared Kushner, son-in-law of candidate Trump.603 Kushner told the Office that the event came at a time when the Trump Campaign was having trouble securing support from experienced foreign policy professionals and that, as a result, he decided to seek Simes's assistance during the March 14 event.604
Just as a reality check, I find all this very curious. As of July 21, 2016 the nomination of Donald J. Trump was secured. At no point in time was he accepting any National Security Assessments, as Hillary Clinton did, during his campaign. He was refusing National Security Assessments even after his election in November. But, here in March of 2016 they were soliciting the assistance of a very esteemed foreign policy organization and Jared Kushner was involved.
I guess by the end of July 2016 they knew it all.
Simes and Kushner spoke again on a March 24, 2016 telephone call,605 three days after Trump had publicly named the team of foreign policy advisors that had been put together on short notice.606 On March 31, 2016, Simes and Kushner had an in-person, one-on-one meeting in Kushner's New York office.607 During that meeting, Simes told Kushner that the best way to handle foreign-policy issues for the Trump Campaign would be to organize an advisory group of experts to meet with candidate Trump and develop a foreign policy approach that was consistent with Trump's voice.608 Simes believed that Kushner was receptive to that suggestion.609
Simes also had contact with other individuals associated with the Trump Campaign regarding the Campaign's foreign policy positions. For example, on June 17, 2016, Simes sent J.D. Gordon...
Same Gordon. He is very qualified. What the heck is he doing with Butina? I think the GRU was all over this campaign and it continued to steer the Trump Campaign back into the arms of Vladimir Putin and whatever money it took.
August 4, 2019
By Emily Stewart
...Rosalind Helderman (click here) at the Washington Post reported on Friday that Butina and Gordon, who served as director of national security for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, exchanged multiple emails in September and October of 2016. He had already left Trump’s campaign at the time, though he was offered a role in the transition team....
...an email with a "memo to Senator Sessions that we discussed at our recent meeting" and asked Gordon to both read it and share it with Sessions. The memorandum proposed building a "small and carefully selected group of experts" to assist Sessions with the Campaign, operating under the assumption "that Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable on national security and foreign policy issues." The memorandum outlined key issues for the Campaign, including a "new beginning with Russia."610
That doesn't make sense. Hillary Clinton was hardly new at national security or foreign policy. It doesn't make sense these men underestimated Clinton's abilities. Besides being Obama's Secretary of State, she served in the US Senate on the US Armed Services Committee from 2003 - 2009. Odd, very odd.
593 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 1-2.
594 About the Center, CNI, available at https://cftni.org/about/.
595 Advisory Counsel, CNl, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20161030025331/ http://cftni.org/about/advisory-council/;
Simes 3/8/18 302, at 3-4; Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 4; Sessions 1/17/18 302, at 16.
Footnote 596 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 2.
Footnote 597 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 1-2; Simes 3/27/18 302, at 19.
Footnote 598 Simes 3/27 /18 302, at 10-15.
Footnote 599 C000l 1656 (Rethinking US-Russia Relations, CNI (Apr. 18, 2015)).
Footnote 600 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 5; Saunders 2/15/18 302, at 29-30; Zakheim 1/25/18 302, at 3.
Footnote 601 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 6; C00006784 (3/11/16 Email, Gilbride to Saunders (3:43:12 p.m.); cf Zakheim 1/25/18 302, at 1 (Kissinger was CNI's "Honorary Chairman of the Board"); Boyd 1/24/1 8 302, at 2; P. Sanders 2/15/18 302, at 5.
Footnote 602 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 5-6; Simes 3/27/18 302, at 2.
Footnote 603 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 6; Kushner 4/11/18 302 at 2.
Footnote 604 Kushner 4/ 11/ 18 302, at 2.
Footnote 605 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 6-7.
Footnote 606 Grand Jury see Volume I, Section IV.A.2, supra
Footnote 607 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 7-9.
Footnote 608 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 7-8.
Footnote 609 Simes 3/8/18 302, at 8; see also Boyd 1/24/18 302, at 2
Footnote 610 C00008187 (6/17/16 Email, Simes to Gordon (3:35:45 p.m.)).
continued in following entry - thank you
