After Election Day, during the transition, one of the first places Gordon went was to Hungary—where Russia's spy agency has its European HQ. He apparently spent the weeks *before* Election Day talking to a Russian spy. (He's also threatened me repeatedly.) washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
2/ I've asked this repeatedly and never gotten or found an answer to it: was Gordon in fact one of the Sessions aides who met with Sergey Kislyak to talk Russian sanctions in September 2016, right around the time Maria Butina, a Russian spy, came into his life? We need an answer.
3/ Remember, Gordon was at Trump International Hotel when Papadopoulos revealed himself as a Kremlin intermediary; says Trump ordered the GOP platform change on Ukraine at that meeting; and may've been present for Kislyak meetings at the RNC after lying about the platform change.
4/ I don't claim to know for certain what Gordon did, I've only said he wasn't candid about the platform change and needed to be spoken to by investigators. Because I was the only one demanding that at the time—over a year ago—Gordon came after me personally and professionally.
5/ Gordon made clear that he thought that if I would just shut up about him, everyone would forget he was Sessions' right-hand man on Trump's NatSec team and oversaw the flurry of emails (including emails from Page and Papadopoulos) between members of that team in Spring 2016.
6/ He threatened to call the police on me, contacted the FBI about me, wrote to the New Hampshire Department of Education, and harassed my employer to get me to shut up. I wouldn't and didn't. And now we discover he was talking with a Russian spy in the weeks before the election.
7/ All I ever wanted anyone to do was to speak with Gordon and ask questions about certain of his seemingly furtive, covert behaviors surrounding the Russia question. Now—more than a year later—it looks like either someone did ask those questions or the answers fell in their lap.
8/ If Mueller hasn't spoken to Gordon already, he'll obviously need to now; and if he spoke to him previously, unless Gordon already confessed to these contacts Mueller will have to speak to him again and will be poring over the notes from the previous interview looking for lies.
9/ Many people forget that Sergey Kislyak was regarded as a Russian spy, and Gordon's boss repeatedly met with him—possibly with Gordon there—and lied to Congress about it multiple times. Now we find Sessions' right-hand man talked to a Russian spy and hid it. Smoke, meet fire.
10/ So now we have pressing questions: did Gordon lie to the FBI the first time he talked to them (if he already did)? Did Butina begin her promised cooperation already by giving up Gordon, or did the feds find these emails on electronic equipment they seized that belongs to her?
11/ Gordon was hired to the transition team, but now says he never performed any duties for them. This sounds like hogwash—and far more seriously, an attempt to cover up that his trip to Hungary in December 2016, after speaking with Butina for weeks, *was made on Trump's behalf*.
12/ Remember, Papadopoulos had discussed with the Russians meeting in "neutral countries" in Europe, and indeed did so in Italy (as I continue to believe Michael Cohen did). Gordon meeting an FSB representative in Hungary on Trump's behalf in December 2016 would fit this pattern.
13/ Trump had a habit of "firing" or "letting" go his associates as a front of sorts—continuing to use them as agents and advisers. It looks very much like he did this with Gordon, based on what we know right now. Hungary—like Italy—is an EU nation *opposed* to Russian sanctions.
14/ Given that Butina sent Gordon—right away—an email complimenting his appearance (and his demeanor under pressure), and given that Gordon ultimately asked Butina on what appears to have been a date, one wonders what Erickson thought about this. And what *Gordon* was hoping for.
15/ Listen, all, his story is only going to get bigger. I was on the Gordon angle over a year ago—when so few people even knew his name that he thought by threatening my freedom and my employment he could get the entirety of the media to forget he existed. No one will forget now.
16/ Because I was writing about J.D. Gordon over a year ago (see below for a thread from March), I know that he was *central* to the day-to-day operations of Trump's NatSec team, which *coordinated* the attempted Trump-Russia backchannel for *many* months.
17/ Here's a thread from late 2017 in which I itemized some of Gordon's lies—using only public reporting—and revealed for the first time Gordon's threats against me (newsworthy—as they suggested consciousness of guilt—but no one ever asked me about them).
18/ I hope you will forgive me posting my extensive research on Gordon from 2017; it's just that I wish more had listened to it at the time, as we might have discovered all this earlier. Plus, his threats against me were—I know as an investigator and lawyer—themselves suspicious.
19/ For the sake of media—and, I guess, anyone in law enforcement—I'm here posting another 2017 thread I wrote about J.D. Gordon, which included research into why I was certain he would end up being a key Trump-Russia witness (as he now most assuredly is):
20/ And here's the April 2017 thread—yes, this has been going on for fifteen months behind the scenes—that put J.D. Gordon on my trail and led to his threats against my livelihood and my freedom, all of which I ignored. It was this thread he was scared of.
21/ I'm asking the media, for the sake of what I and others I care about had to go through staving off Gordon behind the scenes—with his now-clear intent being to stay out of the public view—to please not be satisfied with The Washington Post report. There is *more to find here*.
22/ I'm far from perfect, but as a former investigator and criminal attorney I did immediately feel Gordon was one of the key witnesses in this investigation. And when he began threatening me because I was the only one mentioning his name, I knew that he had done something wrong.
23/ Gordon also appears in my May '17 thread on the key Trump-Russia figures present at Trump's Mayflower speech. I was the first to post video and stills from the event identifying both Trump aides like Gordon in the audience and VIPs like Bud MacFarlane.
24/ Gordon was also featured prominently in my April '17 thread on which Trump associates had told lies about Russian contacts. I thought at the time the media would start taking a hard look at J.D. Gordon—but it didn't happen until today, 16 months later.
25/ Some of you will recall that a month ago I did a lengthy thread outlining the major EU countries the Trump campaign appears to have used for clandestine meetings with the Russians. Hungary—where J.D. Gordon went right after the election—made the list.
26/ The upshot here is that J.D. Gordon is as ubiquitous in the theory of the Trump-Russia case that says Trump aided and abetted Russian crimes by illegally negotiating U.S. sanctions policy after he knew Russia was waging cyberwar on America as Papadopoulos or Page *ever* were.
27/ Much credit goes to @NatashaBertrand, who, while working for Business Insider, was the first to bring to the forefront that Gordon had told different stories about the RNC sanctions negotiations—with Russian spy Kislyak—to CNN and to Business Insider. That was a breakthrough.
28/ It was that story by Natasha Bertrand that led directly to my discovery of a previously undiscussed (in the media) March 31st, 2016 Trump International Hotel meeting, at which meeting Papadopoulos *revealed himself to Trump as a Kremlin intermediary*.
29/ In that now-famous photo, J.D. Gordon sits right at Jeff Sessions' side. As well he should: it was Gordon, not Sessions, who ran day-to-day operations inside the national security advisory committee Trump used to seek a clandestine backchannel between himself and the Kremlin.
30/ Don't get it twisted: Maria Butina wasn't targeting a guppy when she came onto Gordon strong and quick. She was reeling in a significant fish. And if Bob Mueller wants to reel in two bigger ones—Sessions and Trump—he may well need J.D. Gordon to sign a cooperation deal. /end
