Trump Selects Putin Critic as Top White House Russia Adviser

U.S. President Donald Trump has told Democrats to open “an immediate investigation” into Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s own ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a similar investigation against the House of Representatives Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi.

Team Trump first fired back by tweeting a photo of Schumer and Vladimir Putin yukking it up over coffee and donuts at the gas station.

The Twitter back-and-forth comes after Schumer reiterated calls for an independent investigation into contacts between Russian officials and the Trump team during the 2016 presidential campaign.

On a separate track, USA intelligence agencies working at the end of the previous Obama administration reportedly intercepted messages from Russian officials, some of them from the Kremlin, about contacts with people associated with then president-elect Trump.

Trump targeted congressional Democrats for their encounters with Russians over the years even though the party’s criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions centred on his failure to acknowledge his meetings when questioned at his Senate confirmation hearing and in written responses to the Judiciary Committee.

Jeff Sessions will remain our Attorney General.

On Thursday he was forced to clarify his words, conceding that he twice met the Russian ambassador, but only in his capacity as a senator.

In his January 10 confirmation hearing, Sessions said: “I did not have communications with the Russians”.

At least five trump associates have met with the ambassador during the campaign and transition.

And last month, Michael Flynn, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, was forced to resign after only 24 days when it emerged he had misled vice president Mike Pence over conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington.

That was Donald Trump’s advice to the American people on Friday as he sought to fight back against a fresh avalanche of allegations about his ties to Russian Federation.

They called for an independent prosecutor to probe contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow, which U.S. intelligence says interfered in the election to hurt Trump’s Democratic rival.

The President of the United States either cribbed the joke from Watson or independently thought of the same caption upon seeing the photo.

Andrew Kent, a professor at Fordham Law School in NY who has written extensively about the investigations into Trump and Russia, said the FBI and congressional committees are focused on different aspects of the suspected Trump-Russia connections.

But the Trump administration stands by his decision to recuse himself from any investigations.

The Democrats are hoping to break their spectacular, almost nine year losing streak by forcing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign.

For its part, the Kremlin said on Wednesday it was patiently waiting for “some kind of actions” from the Trump administration so that it could understand what the future holds for relations.

Trump has called any developments about links between Russian Federation and his campaign officials a “total witch hunt”.