Oops! Guess Who Else Met With the Russian Ambassador

Democrats on Thursday gave us a real-world demonstration of exactly what Jesus was talking about with regard to splinters and planks of wood.

Desperate to make the Trump administration-Russia connection stick in an effort to delegitimize President Donald Trump and those who work for him, they spent much of the day demanding that Attorney General Jeff Sessions resign because he talked with Russian Ambassador Sergy Kislyak twice—on official Senate business—in 2016.

But The Daily Caller reported Friday morning that Kislyak didn’t just visit Sessions. He also was an official visitor to the White House—22 times.

The report states:

The visitor logs, which Obama made public in 2009 in a push for transparency, show that the long-time Russian ambassador to the United States visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016.

Kislyak appeared in the logs as recently as Sept. 2016 when he had a meeting scheduled with one of Obama’s senior advisers, John Holdren, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The other visitors listed at the meeting are Marina W. Gross, Alexander Ermolaev, Alexey Lopatin, Vyacheslav Balakirev and Sergey Sarazhinskiy. Though the appointment was scheduled to begin at 12:00 pm, it does not include an end time.

Kislyak was also listed on the logs in July 2016, March 2016, Jan. 2016, Aug. 2015, April 2014, Feb. 2014, May 2013, Feb. 2013, Nov. 2012, Dec. 2011, July 2011, Dec. 2010, Oct. 2010, May 2010, April 2010, Feb. 2010, March 2010, Dec. 2009 and Sept. 2009.

The logs include which White House official hosted Kislyak each time he was cleared to visit. The hosts included are: Gary Samore, who was the senior National Security Council official on weapons of mass destruction during Obama’s first term (four visits); Robert Malley, who was Obama’s senior adviser on defeating the Islamic State (three visits); Lawrence Summers, who was Obama’s economic adviser (one visit); Michael Froman, Obama’s trade representative; Holdren (two visits); and the visitor’s office (four visits).

Kislyak was also listed in the logs an additional 12 times, but that was when there were between 180 and 3,000 other visitors also listed, such as for an event like a “holiday open house” or the “diplomatic corps reception.”

The groups included in the number above involved between one and 38 people. Most of the appointments had five or fewer visitors listed.

Click here for the full report.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who also served with Sessions on both the Judiciary and Armed Services committees, was grilled by the liberal mainstream media over the Sessions meetings on Thursday, as well. His response was, as usual, epic (see the video above).

Here are excerpts of an interview with MSNBC:

I think what we are seeing is a lot of political theater.

Could Jeff have been more clear in what he said?

Yes. I think it—that was unfortunate. But I think context matters a lot. Jeff was being asked about the Trump campaign communicating with the Russians. I think he understood that he was answering in that capacity. And that is perfectly understandable.

And the reason I say it’s political theater is the underlying meeting, you know, this morning, everyone is in high dungeon about the meeting. The underlying meeting is a nothing-burger. It’s what senators do every day, meeting with foreign ambassadors; that’s part of the job.

And Jeff is a—was a very hard-working senator; he will be a hard-working attorney general. And so I think everyone is getting all worked up because it’s a chance to beat up the attorney general and beat up the president. But I think the underlying meeting is simply doing his job …

But it’s interesting, when this story broke last night, I asked my team to just pull up the calendar for January and February of this year. And I met with six different ambassadors in the last two months. That’s part of being a senator.

And you know, a minute ago, Joe was asking, well, gosh, when Al Franken was questioning Jeff Sessions and he—and Jeff Sessions was saying, that, as the Trump campaign, as a surrogate, he didn’t meet with Russia, you know, I’m willing to bet Al Franken has met with a great number of ambassadors.

I’m also willing to bet that when Al Franken meets with foreign ambassadors, he didn’t consider it the Hillary campaign meeting with them.

Al Franken was supporting Hillary Clinton, he was a surrogate for Hillary Clinton. But when he’s doing his job as a senator, he’s not a representative of the campaign. I think the same was exactly true for Jeff Sessions when he was doing his job as a senator …

I’m on the Armed Services Committee. I served with Jeff. I’m on the Judiciary Committee. I served with Jeff.

And you know, one of the things that’s important, you know, you see Democratic politicians this morning coming out and blasting Jeff and saying things like that this was misleading. You know, many of—many of us have served with Jeff for years, sometimes decades in the Senate. Jeff Sessions is a man of integrity, he’s a man of candor.

I don’t know any senator who served with Jeff Sessions, Democrat or Republican, who would say that Jeff has been anything less than totally honest. Now they don’t like that he’s a conservative. You know, the Democrats don’t like Jeff as a conservative. But he is very open and honest about his views.

And, by the way, Jeff has been a serious critic of Russia. He’s not been shy calling out Putin. So the notion that there was something somehow wrong with a senior senator on the Armed Services Committee meeting with a foreign ambassador, I think that’s a nothing-burger. {eoa}