This Seems Important

With all the focus on Donald Trump defending white supremacy and threatening to start a nuclear war with North Korea, it's easy to forget (read: it's possible that your overwhelmed, fried-out panic centers forced your brain to momentarily hit pause on being worried) that Trump is a traitor who probably colluded with Russia to get elected and may be colluding with them still.

So here's a timely reminder about that!

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Manu Raju and Marshall Cohen at CNN: Top Trump Aide's Email Draws New Scrutiny in Russia Inquiry.

Congressional investigators have unearthed an email from a top Trump aide that referenced a previously unreported effort to arrange a meeting last year between Trump campaign officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The aide, Rick Dearborn, who is now [Donald] Trump's deputy chief of staff, sent a brief email to campaign officials last year relaying information about an individual who was seeking to connect top Trump officials with Putin, the sources said.

The person was only identified in the email as being from "WV," which one source said was a reference to West Virginia. It's unclear who the individual is, what he or she was seeking, or whether Dearborn even acted on the request. One source said that the individual was believed to have had political connections in West Virginia, but details about the request and who initiated it remain vague.

The same source said Dearborn in the email appeared skeptical of the requested meeting.

Sources said the email occurred in June 2016 around the time of the recently revealed Trump Tower meeting where Russians with Kremlin ties met with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Two things:

1. Rick Dearborn was Jeff Sessions' chief of staff when he was a Senator. He "was involved in helping to arrange an April 2016 event at the Mayflower Hotel where Trump delivered a major foreign policy address," which was attended by former Russian Ambassador (and top spy recruiter) Sergey Kislyak, as well as Sessions — which Sessions failed to disclose.

2. The unnamed individual from West Virginia may be West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who recently switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican, which he announced at a rally with Trump. He is also the owner of a coal mine that he sold (for cash) to a Russian coal company owned by a Russian oligarch who's a friend of Putin, and then repurchased from him several years later. Sarah Kendzior has a good thread with more information on Justice and his dealings with the Russians.

Thread on Jim Justice Russia deals in light of "WV" source in Trump campaign email https://t.co/Gb0zYmZ1zo

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 24, 2017

Bob Mueller's investigation continues.