U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters say members of Trump's campaign staff, including Michael Flynn and others, had 18 undisclosed conversations with the Russians in 2016.
That might not blow your skirt up, but this should:
Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.
Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.
If Flynn and Kislyak were the middlemen between Trump and Putin, that would make Trump's recent meeting with Kislyak look even more suspicious.
Trump reportedly agreed to their meeting in the oval office because the Putin himself requested it. Why would he do that? The idea that they arranged a meeting so they could bug the oval office sounds a bit outlandish, but I'm not sure at this point. The goal posts have moved.
It's fairly clear that the intelligence community and federal investigators have a lot of receipts on Michael Flynn's activities. It almost seems implausible that Trump himself has not been implicated.
Are we suppose to believe Trump was unaware that Flynn was his back channel to Putin? What are the chances Flynn never discussed Trump's involvement? Flynn doesn't strike me as that smart.