Moscow’s man in Washington is at the center of the political moment Washington Post : “Opinions differ on whether Kislyak is a spy in the American sense of the word. ‘For them it’s much grayer,’ Hall said of the Russian view of the difference between a diplomat and spy. ‘I would say [Kislyak] is most definitely both. In the Russian system, it’s simply assumed that they’re all collecting and doing whatever they can either covertly or overtly.”’
April 27, 2016: “Paul Saunders, a Russia specialist at the Center for the National Interest and a former official in the George W. Bush administration…hosted then-candidate Donald Trump for a foreign policy speech in April last year. Kislyak was in the audience as one of four invited foreign ambassadors as Trump proclaimed, “America-first will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.” Washington Post “Trump briefly meets (Russian envoy) Sergey Kislyak in a pre-event reception line shortly before Trump delivers a major foreign-policy speech…Sessions was also in attendance, although there’s no evidence he met Kislyak at the reception.“The line moved quickly and any conversations with Mr. Trump in that setting were inherently brief and could not be private,” the center said in a March 8, 2017, statement. ‘Our recollection is that the interaction between Mr. Trump and Ambassador Kislyak was limited to the polite exchange of pleasantries appropriate on such occasions.’” The Atlantic
