Lobbyist for Russian interests says he attended dinners hosted by Sessions

[neohippie]

42. Just found this story

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/why-did-jeff-sessions-really-meet-sergey-kislyak/530091/


This makes Sessions look guilty of using his Senate office to conduct Trump campaign business and also shows how involved Sessions was on the Trump Russia policy and how tied he was to other key players.

As Trump’s foreign-policy adviser, Sessions began to speak frequently with Dimitri Simes, the Russia specialist who is well-connected in Moscow and runs the Center for the National Interest, a hub of Nixonian realism. He also met with Richard Burt, a former American ambassador to Germany turned lobbyist for McLarty and Associates. Burt also represents blue-chip Russian clients like Alfa Bank, which was mentioned in the unverified intelligence dossier published by BuzzFeed in January. (Alfa Bank is now suing BuzzFeed for defamation.) One source with direct knowledge told me that Burt helped write Trump’s April 2016 foreign-policy speech, which Trump delivered at the Mayflower Hotel at an event hosted by the Center for the National Interest, although Burt himself denied it when we spoke last summer.

This Dimitri Simes guy is Russian and setup the Mayflower Hotel event, and seems to have ties to Putin and the Kremlin that makes another Russian Surrogate the met with Sessions during the Trump campaign, once again something he either lied about or claims he doesn't remember

as noted in this story below


http://freebeacon.com/politics/rand-pauls-russian-connection/

Simes’ views and connections are widely known in Russia policy circles. Last September, days after Vladimir Putin published a column in the New York Times denouncing American exceptionalism, Simes joined the Russian president on stage at the Valdai International Discussion Club forum in Russia for a televised panel discussion.

Flanked by three other panelists—Germany’s former defense minister and France and Italy’s former prime ministers—Simes seemed out of place at the high-ranking, Kremlin-sponsored forum.

"No one directly addresses Putin at Dimitri Simes’ level," noted one Washington-based Russia policy expert. "It just doesn’t happen."

Putin, in good spirits from his recent success at preventing U.S. military action against the Syrian regime, chatted with Simes about U.S. and Russia policy and quizzed his "American friend and colleague" about the U.S. budget deficit.

"I fully support President Putin’s tough stance [on Syria]," said Simes, according to the transcript released by the Kremlin.

"Not because I’m not an American patriot, but because I believe that baby talk among great powers is not the way to reach an agreement. One has to understand what to expect from the other country, and what their mettle is."

He hoped recent events would "open up a real opportunity for Russian-American relations."

The appearance with Putin "set off a lot of internal alarm bells with Russian experts," said one Russia policy specialist.

"You don’t get onstage with Putin, and sit onstage with Putin, and ask him questions in public, unless everything has been greased and unless you’re not gonna do anything that detracts from the message."

Simes has been dogged throughout his career by allegations that his work and his organizations have a pro-Kremlin slant.