Plan B Forum

Trump adviser had five calls with Russian envoy on day of sanctions: sources

Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for national security adviser, held five phone calls with Russia's ambassador to Washington on the day the United States retaliated for Moscow's interference in the U.S. presidential election, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The calls occurred between the time the Russian embassy was told about U.S. sanctions and the announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he had decided against reprisals, said the sources. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing internal U.S. government deliberations about the issue.

The calls raised fresh questions among some U.S. officials about contacts between Trump's advisers and Russian officials at a time when U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions to boost Republican Trump's election chances against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

On Dec. 29, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he had ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats suspected of being spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking U.S. political groups.

The administration told Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, an hour before the decision was made public, one of the sources said.

The phone calls between Flynn and Kislyak were first reported by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

A Trump official confirmed one phone conversation between the two men on Dec. 29, and said their understanding was they did not discuss the sanctions.

The three sources stressed to Reuters that they did not know who initiated the five calls between Flynn, a former three-star Army general who headed the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama, and Kislyak. Nor did they know the contents of the conversations, and declined to say how they learned of them.

One source said there was nothing intrinsically odd or wrong about a Russian diplomat speaking to a member of Trump's team following the U.S. announcement. Moscow, the source added, probably would want to have some sense of what Trump's team thought about the measures.

That sentiment was echoed Friday by State Department spokesman Mark Toner. "This building doesn’t see anything necessarily inappropriate about contact between members of the incoming administration and foreign officials," Toner said.

TIMING

The other two sources, however, said the timing of the calls raised a question about whether Flynn had given Kislyak any assurances to soothe Russian anger over the U.S. moves.

If that were the case, it would have raised a possible entanglement with the Logan Act. The 1799 law bars unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with foreign governments with which the United States has disputes. It is aimed at preventing the undermining of official U.S. government positions.

Alexey Mosin, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington, said: "The Embassy does not comment on multiple contacts, which are carried out on a daily basis with local interlocutors."

Government ethics chief blasts Trump over plans for business

The director of the Office of Government Ethics is blasting President-elect Donald Trump's plan to avoid conflicts of interest as "wholly inadequate."

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Walter M. Shaub said Trump's plan to separate himself from his business interests doesn't follow the tradition of presidents from the past four decades.

"This is not a blind trust," he said. "It's not even close."

Shaub's office is not an enforcement agency, but it advises executive branch officials about how to avoid conflicts. It's the office combing through the financial holdings of Trump's Cabinet nominees to look for problems.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that he would place his vast business holdings in a trust controlled by his adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and that he would relinquish his leadership of the Trump Organization.

Related: What Trump is really doing about his business

Trump will not sell his stake in the business, however. Under a blind trust, Trump would sell his holdings and let an independent manager invest the proceeds. That way, he could not profit directly from decisions he makes as president.

Shaub said the Trump plan "adds nothing to the equation."

"We can't risk creating the perception that government leaders would use their official positions for profit," he said.

Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While federal conflict of interest rules prohibit executive branch officials from holding assets that could clash with their official duties, the president and vice president are exempt. Trump has seized on this point while discussing his business, saying the president "can't have a conflict of interest."

Shaub, who was appointed by President Obama in January 2013, said Trump should act as though the rules applied to him, too.

"Common sense dictates that a president can, of course, have very real conflicts of interest," he said, adding that "potential for corruption only grows with the increase of power."

Shaub praised Rex Tillerson, Trump's pick for secretary of state, for an ethics plan he called a "sterling model" for other Cabinet picks, as well as for Trump.

Tillerson was most recently CEO of ExxonMobil. If he is confirmed for secretary of state, his $181 million retirement package will be put into an independently managed trust that cannot invest in the oil company.

Trump's plan "does not achieve anything like the clean break Rex Tillerson is making from Exxon," Shaub said. He added that for Trump, merely stepping away from running the business, rather than selling it, is "meaningless" from a conflicts perspective.

wesw wrote:yeah, let s not worry about the flurry of idiocy at the end of Obama s reign.

throwing Israel under the bus
trying to ruin US-Russian relations for his successor
ending wetfoot dry foot
normalizing Sudan
sweeping bans on oil exploration and drilling
massive land takings in Utah
etc....

throwing Israel Bibi Netanyahu and Likud (and other far-right parties) under the bus in an effort to save the 2-state solution endorsed by *EVERY* Republican and Democratic POTUS for the last 40 years.

ending wetfoot dry foot

trying to ruin US-Russian relations for his successor