Report: Trump Campaign Adviser Repeatedly Tried to Set Up Putin Meeting

A junior member of Donald Trump’s campaign foreign-policy team made more than half a dozen attempts to connect Trump with the Russian government, including with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to emails reviewed by The Washington Post. The adviser, George Papadopoulos, sent repeated messages to his higher-ups in the Trump campaign from March to September 2016, offering to arrange meetings “with Russian leadership—including Putin.” Papadopoulos reportedly sent Trump campaign officials an email from a Kremlin official, indicating that Russian foreign ministry officials would be receptive to a meeting with Trump. “Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right,” Papadopoulos wrote then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on April 27, 2016. Intelligence officials told the Post that the messages might have represented a Russian campaign to test whether the Trump campaign would be receptive to cooperation.