RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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White House denies Trump joked about Pence being anti-gay
The New Yorker reported that the president joked about Mike Pence's religiosity, drawing a rebuke from the White House.
MATTHEW NUSSBAUM10/17/2017 04:39 PM EDT
Reporter Jane Mayer wrote that President Donald Trump joked during a meeting about gay rights that a visitor shouldn’t bother asking Vice President Mike Pence’s opinion because, Trump reportedly said, “He wants to hang them all!” | Alex Wong/Getty Images
The White House is hitting back at The New Yorker magazine after an explosive profile of Vice President Mike Pence, contesting an anecdote about President Donald Trump joking that Pence wanted to “hang” homosexuals as well as other details reported in the story.
Reporter Jane Mayer wrote that the president joked during a meeting about gay rights that a visitor shouldn’t bother asking Pence’s opinion because, Trump reportedly said, “He wants to hang them all!” Mayer also reported that Trump mocked Pence behind his back for his religious beliefs and asked people who met with him if Pence made them pray.
“From start to finish the article relied on fiction rather than facts,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement to POLITICO. “The president has the highest level of respect for the Vice President, and for his deeply held faith. The suggestion that he would make such outrageous remarks is offensive and untrue. The anecdote was meant to divide, not unite and is completely false.”
The New Yorker said it stands by its reporting.
“The Vice-President’s press office declined to participate in this story for months, after multiple requests for interviews, comment, and fact-checking,” a New Yorker spokesperson said in an emailed statement to POLITICO.
“We heard from the press office only after the piece had closed, late Thursday,” the statement went on. “In the course of fact-checking this piece, we talked to more than sixty people to confirm the reporting contained therein, including senior White House officials, a senior member of the Vice-President’s office, the RGA, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and multiple people who were in the room when President Trump joked that Vice-President Pence ‘wants to hang’ gay people. We stand by the story.”
A senior official in Pence’s office also took issue with a claim in the story that Pence was cozy with Indiana’s gaming industry during his time as that state’s governor and, Mayer reported, “used executive orders to quietly grant several of the gambling industry’s wishes, such as allowing riverboat casinos to expand onshore.”
The move to allow the riverboat casinos’ expansion was done by legislation, which Pence allowed to pass without his signature, according to a statement issued at the time by the governor’s office and provided to POLITICO. At the same time, he vetoed a bill that would have expanded electronic gambling in the state, his office noted.
Pence’s office put out a statement Monday criticizing the New Yorker story.
“Articles like this are why the American people have lost so much faith in the press,” Pence’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said in a statement. “The New Yorker piece is filled with unsubstantiated, unsourced claims that are untrue and offensive.”
Mayer’s article included a number of on-the-record quotes that could prove embarrassing for Pence.
For example, Mayer spoke with Pence’s older brother Gregory, who is himself considering a bid for Congress.
Describing Pence’s first two failed bids for a House seat, Gregory Pence told Mayer: “Mike burned a lot of bridges. … He upset a lot of his backers. It was partly because of immaturity, but he really was kind of full of shyt.”
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Putin rival ties Kushner meeting to Kremlin bankers
Putin Rival Ties Kushner Meeting to Kremlin Bankers
by Ari Melber , Meredith Mandell and Mirjam LablansOct 17 2017, 6:23 pm ET
A prominent exiled Russian oligarch said in an exclusive interview with NBC News that he is nearly certain Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to collaborate with the Trump campaign, and that he believes a top Russian banker was not "acting on his own behalf" when he held a controversial meeting with Jared Kushner last December.
The pointed remarks come from a longtime Putin rival, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil executive who was Russia's richest man before he was imprisoned and exiled by the Kremlin.
"I am almost convinced that Putin's people have tried to influence the U.S. election in some way," Khodorkovsky told MSNBC’s Ari Melber in his first U.S. television interview since Trump took office.
Khodorkovsky says he believes the likelihood that Putin "personally" tried to cooperate with the Trump campaign to affect the election is a "9 out of 10."
"Whether or not that proposal was accepted, I would let the people responsible for investigating the matter answer that question," he added.
Khodorkovsky was freed and exiled from Russia in 2013, after spending 10 years in prison for tax evasion. Several international human rights groups have said the prosecution was political retribution for his public criticism of Putin.
Acting on orders
Khodorkovsky has links to some Putin allies implicated in the FBI probe into Russian election meddling, based on his time running Yukos, Russia's largest oil company.
His former head of human resources, Sergey Gorkov, now runs a Kremlin bank and met with Kushner in December last year. The U.S. has accused Gorkov's bank of providing cover for Russian spies.
Khodorkovsky says Gorkov was a "fine employee" who "carries out orders," suggesting the banker would not have been acting alone in meeting with a senior figure of the incoming Trump administration.
"I have no doubt that he wouldn’t do anything on his own behalf," Khodorkovsky said.
READ: The full transcript of Ari Melber's interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Khodorkovsky also said he believes Gorkov's orders come from either Andrey Kostin or Herman Gref, who both run Kremlin-backed banks that were sanctioned by the Obama administration.
"If there were any instructions, they came from the level of Kostin, the chairman of the board of VTB bank," Khodorkovsky said, "or from the level of Mr. Gref, which isn’t nearly as likely, despite the two of them being close."
Russian President Vladimir Putin Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik / EPA file
Khodorkovsky's aides say this is the first time he has shared these details about Gorkov.
The two bankers Khodorkovsky cited — Kostin and Gref — have been publicly linked to Trump.
In 2013, Gref co-organized a dinner in Moscow for Trump to meet Russian financiers. The other organizer of that dinner was Aras Agalarov, the businessman involved in offering dirt on Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump Jr., according to emails.
Kostin was named by Trump associate Felix Sater, a former FBI informant, as a potential source of funding for a Trump Tower project in Moscow — which Kostin denied on Friday.
Kostin also categorically denies Khodorkovsky's claims.
In a statement to MSNBC, Kostin's bank said Khodorkovsky’s assertion is "completely false, unfounded and with no substance."
"Mr. Kostin is not personally acquainted with Mr. Kushner," the statement said, and he has "never had discussions, or any other kind of communication, with Mr. Gorkov regarding a possible meeting with Mr. Kushner, and doesn’t understand the point such a meeting could have had." Gref’s bank did not respond to requests for comment.
White House Senior Adviser and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner walks out of the West Wing to read a statement after testifying behind closed doors to the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian meddling in the presidential election. Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Kushner's meeting with Gorkov already drew contradicting accounts from the attendees. The Kremlin bank said it was a business meeting, while the Trump administration said it was a diplomatic meeting.
Asked about those conflicting accounts, Khodorkovsky said "it’s difficult for me to interpret such a contradiction."
"It’s very possible that what your administration regards as a governmental issue, Russian representatives view as purely business," Khodorkovsky said. "Although, in my experience, it's typically the opposite."
Putin needs an American enemy
More broadly, Khodorkovsky also sized up Putin's relationship with Trump, noting Putin is a "strong tactician" with more experience.
"If they were to face off, I wouldn't bet on Trump," Khodorkovsky said.
He added that Putin’s perceived success at affecting the U.S. election is still a challenge for him back in Russia.
"Putin needs America as an enemy," he said. "Now he’s got complicated task of having to say, 'Yes, Trump is our guy in the White House, but America is our enemy,'" he continued, adding that so far, "the Kremlin propagandists are managing to succeed at this."
Khodorkovsky also reflected on his years in a Russian prison, and his outlook for speaking out now.
"Could I have been murdered? Certainly," he says of his days behind bars. "I was knifed in the face while sleeping. Was I afraid of it? No."
He now runs an organization devoted to supporting democratic reforms in Russia, and says he "accepts the risks" of speaking out against Putin while living in exile in Switzerland.
"I could make my life safer by not getting involved in the sociopolitical life of my country," he says, "but then it wouldn’t be my life."
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