Page 79 - Sam Clovis News Today

Gop tax reform plan presser, i want to bring you more on the breaking news, president trumps nominee for a top post at the agriculture department has withdrawn his name for consideration. sam clovis was a top campaign official, he was up to be the departments chief scientist and now were learning questions about his ties to former trump campaign adviser george papadopolous who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi about his russia contacts put that nomination in jeopardy. jessica schneider is cover...

By bit, step by step. theyre moving at a pretty good pace. remember, mueller was only appointed in may and theyre already at the point of two indictments and a guilty plea. but theyre going through this very methodically and by all accounts he has assembled the best of the best in terms of federal prosecutors. and this is just going to continue a pace for weeks, months, years, and the administration is going to be scrutinized on this. and they just have to sort of settle into this fact. one thin...

A person in the room at the time said trump did not rule out the idea but sessions, who was then chairman of trumps national security advisory committee, rejected the suggestion. >> ive racked my brain to make sure i could answer any of those questions correctly. >> reporter: sessions failed to tell congress about the proposed trump/putin meeting during his confirmation hearing and again during recent congressional inquiries into russian election meddling. >> the idea that i was part of a, quote...

Role is? as hes related to george or carter page or the foreign policy team, theres a lot of questions. >> yeah. and those questions will continue to be asked. he assembled that foreign policy team that included papadopoulos and carter page. although exactly what his role is is unclear. but, you know, i think its really important that his title was national co-chair and policy adviser to the trump campaign. when the team said george papadopoulos was the coffee boy, nobody knew what he was doing....

Campaign foreign policy adviser who has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the fbi and the russia investigation. apparently mr. clovis is one of the individuals referred to in court documents as exchanging e-mails with papadopoulos, and this, obviously about sending trump staff overseas to talk with russians, a lawyer, a very important to see a lawyer for clovis has said mr. clovis was adamant about telling papadopoulos that, no, there should be no trump staff foreign travel to russia....

Its really mystifying because, you know, this is a pretty dramatic thing. you are proposing a meeting between the candidate and head of an adversary nation. and the story is jeff sessions nixed it and said were going to move on. but to me, the real question is who within the trump campaign knew that george papadopoulos had been offered dirt on hillary clinton and thousands of e-mails. did sam clovis, the campaign supervisor know who is not going forward as agriculture chief scientist? did jeff s...

Clovis in the documents, only referred to in the documents as campaign supervisor, sam clovis attorneys pushed back saying no, he wasnt really encouraging him, that was sort of misread, he was being polite as he would be to any campaign volunteer. so his attorneys tried to push back on this earlier in the week, but, of course, we have seen the fallout with sam clovis withdrawing from the nomination as chief scientist at the department of agricultural. ana? >> meantime we have manafort and gates ...

Connection to a man named george papadopolous and the russia investigation. papadopolous, as we all know, pleaded guilty to a count of making false statements as a result of an fbi interview with him. apparently clovis is one of the individuals who e-mailed and had other contacts with papadopolous and, among the topics of conversation, was whether staff for the trump campaign ought to travel overseas to meet with russian officials. as you know, the investigation is in to coordination of campaign...

Withdrawing his name. he confirmed he has no -- not just limited -- no background in hard science or agriculture. the white house said in a statement they respect clovis decision. a source tells nbc news robert muell muellers team interviewed him last week. >> and clovis is one of the people whose names have something to do with george papadopoulos. theres that relationship. reporter ken delaney has been doing work on this. what are you hearing about this withdrawal and what does it have to do w...

There is cooperation happening from people who have been charged or pled in this investigation. the list keeps going on. it used to be that they were a small group of people. carter page and papadopoulos who were not paid and deeply involved in the campaign supposedly. the number of campaign officials who were being paid and senior officials who had direct contact with them is a very long list. >> the plea agreement with papadopoulos identifies a campaign official which everyone confirmed is clo...