Papadopoulos (pictured) to Russian contact: “Meeting has been approved by our side”

Developments on Day 285 of the Trump Administration:

See also Timeline: Papadopoulos, Trump-Russia Connections, and Clinton’s E-mails
Podcasts: Beginner’s Guide to Trump’s Indictment Day
Trump’s Very Bad Indictment Day

Explosive Claim from Former Trump Advisor

Former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with investigators after pleading guilty in the Trump-Russia inquiry, claimed in July 2016 that top Trump campaign officials agreed to a pre-election meeting with representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The e-mail is cited in an FBI agent’s affidavit supporting the criminal charges, including lying to investigators, to which Papadopoulos pled guilty in early Ocotber. It is not the court documents that detailed the plea and his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Papadopoulos wrote to a Russian contact a week before the Republican National Convention, proposing a meeting for August or September in the UK that would involve “my national chairman” — Paul Manafort, now indicted on financial and lobbying charges, including connections with pro-Russian interests — “and maybe one other foreign policy adviser” and members of Putin’s office and Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

“It has been approved by our side,” Papadopoulos wrote.

The advisor first proposed a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russians at a March 31 session of Trump’s national security team. Trump, who attended the discussion chaired by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no“, according to a staffer in the room.

However, the source and a second official said Sessions shut down conversation on the topic at the time.

Tracking the Trump-Russia Contacts

Jason Maloni, a spokesman for Manafort, said his client had rebuffed overtures to meet with Russians. He noted an e-mail from May in which Manafort held back an attempt to have Trump meet with Putin or his representatives.

But in June, Manafort’s predecessor as campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski referred Papadopoulos to Clovis, whom he said was now “running point” on the possible contacts.

In August, Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis supported Papadopoulos: “I would encourage you” and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to “make the trip, if it is feasible”.

Despite that e-mail, Clovis insisted yesterday that Papadopoulos was acting on his own and that the campaign had a strict rule against traveling abroad and claiming to speak on its behalf.

The Anti-Clinton Offer

However, Clovis had praised the earlier Papadopoulos efforts with Russian-linked contacts — including an academic based in London, who was a channel to a Russian think tank director linked to the Foreign Ministry, and with a woman labelled as “Putin’s niece”. He wrote Papadopoulos, “Great work”.

The discussions included the disclosure in April 2016, through the London professor, that Moscow had thousands of e-mails damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Weeks earlier, Russian operatives had hacked the e-mails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

In early June, three Kremlin-linked envoys met Donald Trump, Jr., Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Manafort after a Russian offer to provide the anti-Clinton material. Weeks later, Donald Trump publicly called on the Russians to retrieved 33,000 e-mails deleted from Clinton’s private server.

The White House continued its line trying to play down Papadopoulos’ significance, even though he was named as one of five foreign policy advisors by Donald Trump in March 2016 and attended meetings of Trump’s national security team, chaired by Jeff Sessions, now the Attorney General.

Trump, who was uncharacteristically silent on Twitter after the surprise revelation of Papadopoulos’ guilty plea and cooperation with Mueller, finally reacted on Tuesday morning.

US Government Sued Over Detention of Immigrant Girl with Cerebral Palsy

The American Civil Liberties Union sues the US government over its detention of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, detained by Border Patrol agents after surgery because she is in the US without legal permission.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Antonio, where Rosa Maria Hernandez is being held in a facility for unaccompanied minors.

The Border Patrol said its agents took the child into custody last week after emergency gall bladder surgery out of concern for her welfare.

“Nothing stops the government right now from returning Rosa Maria to the family she’s lived with her entire life,” said Michael Tan, an attorney for the ACLU.

Rosa Maria’s parents brought her into the US from Mexico in 2007, when she was 3 months old. Her parents are also in the US without legal authorization and live in the Texas border city of Laredo.

Due to her cerebral palsy, Rosa Maria has the mental capacity of a child who is 4 or 5 years old.

To get to a children’s hospital in Corpus Christi, about 150 miles away from Laredo, the child had to cross one of the many interior checkpoints operated by the Border Patrol in southern Texas. Rather than risk being detained themselves, her parents sent her with a cousin who is a U.S. citizen.

After discovering that Rosa Maria was not in the US legally, Border Patrol agents followed the vehicle in which she was travelling to the Corpus Christi hospital.

Leticia Gonzalez, an attorney for the family, said the agents then waited outside Rosa Maria’s room as she recovered before taking her to the detention center.

The ACLU filed the case after federal authorities failed to comply with its demand that Rosa Maria be released to her family by 2 pm Tuesday.