The list of associates and staffers of President Donald Trump who lied about meetings or connections to Russia continues to grow. However, one of those on the list often goes unnoticed and he's the one that tied the Republican Party to greater cooperation with the Russian government as they were hacking the Democratic Party.
Trump's national-security policy representative for the Republican National Convention was J.D. Gordon, who previously worked as a Pentagon spokesman from 2005–2009 under the George W. Bush administration. The conservative is also a former Navy officer.
At his urgency, The Republican Party's platform was changed when it comes to the position on Russia and Ukraine. He was the advisor who pushed to amend the platform to align with Trump's values, Business Insider reported. The move was a dramatic shift for the GOP.
In Jan. 2017, Gordon told Business Insider that he "never left" his "assigned side table" at the Republican convention. He swore that he didn't speak publicly at the national security subcommittee meeting either, which is where the amendment was discussed. Attendees called for "providing lethal defense weapons" to Ukraine's military to fight off the Russian-backed separatists. It ultimately was watered down and changed to say that the GOP advocated for the U.S. "providing appropriate assistance" to Ukraine, with no definition of what "appropriate assistance" meant.
He's yet another on the list of those Trump staffers and advisors who lied about meetings with Russians.
By March, Gordon was changing his previous denials. According to CNN's Jim Acosta, Gordon said, "he and other national security advisors met with the Russian Ambassador in Cleveland during GOP convention."
Further, Gordon admitted to joining others who "advocated for the GOP platform to include language against arming Ukrainians against pro-Russian rebels" because "this was in line with Trump's views, expressed at a March national security meeting at the unfinished Trump hotel" in Washington, D.C.
Acosta explained that Gordon made the move because he didn't want to see the United States go to "World War Three" over Ukraine.
"Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Manafort were involved in those sort of deals," Gordon claimed.
That isn't eithrely true either.
Just 10 days after the convention wrapped, the New York Times outlined the complicated history of Russia and Paul Manafort.
“President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who owed his election to, as an American diplomat put it, an ‘extreme makeover’ Mr. Manafort oversaw, bolted the country in the face of violent street protests,” The Times revealed. “He found sanctuary in Russia and never returned, as his patron, President Vladimir V. Putin, proceeded to dismember Ukraine, annexing Crimea and fomenting a war in two other provinces that continues.”
Manafort’s past involvement in helping Ukraine-backed separatists eventually caught up with him and he was forced to resign from the Trump campaign.
In the words of CNN's Jake Tapper, "Why so much lying?"
