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The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump's transition, according to CNN. Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak in the month before Trump took office, the first current or former Trump White House official brought down by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's election meddling. Court records indicate that his communications with Kislyak were directed by a Trump transition official, with multiple news outlets reporting that official was Trump's...

Russia has recalled its ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, according to a report. The decision to send Kislyak back to Russia comes amidst multiple investigations into the ambassador's ties to President Trump's top aides during the 2016 presidential campaign, BuzzFeed reported. Trump's top aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former national security adviser Mike Flynn all had meetings with Kislyak that have since come under scrutiny as the FBI and multiple congressional committees continue to investigate the Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. More specifically, the meeting between Kislyak, Kushner and Flynn in...

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Wednesday confronted Russia directly in an impassioned address to the United Nations following a reported chemical attack in Syria on Tuesday. Haley gave a horrific and vivid account of the reported chemical attack, holding up photos of child victims for the U.N. Security Council to see. “Men, women, the elderly, and children gasping for their very last breath,” she said. “And as first responders, doctors, and nurses rushed to help the victims, a second round of bombs rained down. They died in the same slow, horrendous manner as the civilians they were trying to save.”...

(Full article title: Hillary Clinton's team met with Russian ambassador, says Kremlin spokesman, as he warns against 'hysteria') Hillary Clinton’s team members met with the Russian ambassador during the election as well as Donald Trump’s, the Kremlin spokesman has alleged, as he set out to dismiss the “hysteria” surrounding Mr Trump’s links to Russia. The house intelligence committee will hold its first session on Russia on March 20, with the heads of the FBI, national security agency and CIA expected to appear, plus previous intelligence chiefs. But Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for Vladimir Putin, said on Sunday that America...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said in an interview that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who met with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, also met with advisers to the Hillary Clinton campaign. “Well, if you look at some people connected with Hillary Clinton during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,” Dmitry Peskov told CNN’s GPS host Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. “There are lots of specialists in politology, people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York City medical examiner's office, citing diplomatic protocol, will not release the cause and manner of death for Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, who died suddenly last month after collapsing in his office. An autopsy was performed on Ambassador Vitaly Churkin last month, but the death required further study. The additional tests were completed, but Julie Bolcer, spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner, said Friday that the city's law department told the office not to release any further information, "in order to comply with international law and protocol." The U.S. Department of State...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that she's never met with the current Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. "Not with this Russian ambassador, no," Pelosi told POLITICO's Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer during a Playbook interview, when asked if she'd ever met with the Russian envoy. But a file photo from Pelosi's 2010 meeting with Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev shows Kislyak at the table across from Pelosi — then House speaker — and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Medvedev had been in the country for a meeting with President Barack Obama a day earlier and

With all the fake news uproar over Attorney General Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador, perhaps this photograph provides some ‘nothingburger’ perspective: Just last Tuesday night Ambassador Kislyak attended President Trump’s speech to a Joint Session of congress. The Russian ambassador was noted in numerous conversations with Senate Democrats and was seated on the Democrat side of the venue. Apparently, Kislyak is a regular visitor to the Capitol as noted in this tweet reply from Bri Hume.

The visitor logs, which Obama made public in 2009 in a push for transparency, show that the long-time Russian ambassador to the United States visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016. Kislyak appeared in the logs as recently as September 2016 when he had a meeting scheduled with one of Obama’s senior advisers, John Holdren, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The other visitors listed at the meeting are Marina W. Gross, Alexander Ermolaev, Alexey Lopatin, Vyacheslav Balakirev and Sergey Sarazhinskiy. Though the appointment was scheduled to begin at 12:00 pm, it does not include...

Sergey Kislyak appeared in the White House visitor logs dozens of times when Barack Obama was in office. The visitor logs, which Obama made public in 2009 in a push for transparency, show that the long-time Russian ambassador to the United States visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016. Kislyak appeared in the logs as recently as September 2016 when he had a meeting scheduled with one of Obama’s senior advisers, John Holdren, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The other visitors listed at the meeting are Marina W. Gross, Alexander Ermolaev, Alexey Lopatin, Vyacheslav...

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and now a senior adviser, also participated in the meeting at Trump Tower with Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. But among Mr. Trump’s inner circle, it is Mr. Flynn who appears to have been the main interlocutor with the Russian envoy — the two were in contact during the campaign and the transition, Mr. Kislyak and current and former American officials have said. But the extent and frequency of their contacts remains unclear, and the disclosure of the meeting at Trump Tower adds to the emerging picture of how the relationship...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Russian officials say its ambassador to the United Nations has died suddenly in New York City. Vitaly Churkin was 64. Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, told The Associated Press that Churkin became ill in his office at Russia's U.N. mission and was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he died Monday. His cause of death wasn't immediately known. Churkin has been Russia's envoy at the United Nations for a little over a decade and was considered Moscow's great champion at the U.N.

Turkish government intelligence has determined Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22 – the police officer who recently assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov while the ambassador was giving a speech to open an art gallery in Ankara – was a member of the Gulen organization, which claimed to be the same group that staged an unsuccessful coup in Turkey in July.... ....the Clinton Foundation was engaged in a pay-to-play scheme to obtain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for the Obama administration decision to give asylum to Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim imam the Erdogan government holds responsible for the attempted coup July...

An off-duty police officer named Mevlut Mert Altintas, screaming “Allahu akbar” and making the raised index finger gesture that has come to be a signal of allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), murdered Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art exhibit in Ankara on Monday. Altintas was reportedly a “member of the special ops unit in Ankara” – raising the question of what did Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan know, and when did he know it? As he murdered Karlov, Altintas shouted: “Allahu akbar (God is greatest). Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria! Do not...

The Turkish policeman who murdered Russia’s ambassador to Ankara provided security to Turkey's president multiple times in the run up to Monday's assassination, it has bean claimed. Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, served on police details backing up Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s personal body guards eight times since the failed military coup that rocked Turkey in July, Abdülkadir Selvi, a columnist known for his close ties to the government, wrote in Hurriyet on Wednesday. Alintas, who served on an elite Ankara riot unit for two and a half years, was part of the second tier of security at those events. He was...

An al-Qaeda linked terror group has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, it was reported. A statement released by the Syria based al-Nusra front hails the killer, off duty policeman Mevlut Altintas, as a martyr who sought 'revenge for the women, children and elderly killed in Aleppo'. Altintas recited a poem associated with al-Nusra fighters and yelled, 'Don't forget Aleppo', before gunning down Andrei Karlov at the opening of an art exhibition in Ankara.

Trump has called for international cooperation in fighting terror. The Kremlin has praised U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s response to Monday’s attacks in Berlin and Ankara, claiming that his words are “in tune” with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump accused a “radical Islamic terrorist” of shooting dead the Russian Ambassador to Turkey on Monday before also commenting on an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany’s capital. In response to the latter, he declared “terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks must be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” and called for international support to do so.

<p>Russia's ambassador to Turkey has been shot in an 'assassination attempt'.</p> <p>We'll be bringing you the very latest updates, pictures and video on this breaking news story.</p>

Full title : The Russian Ambassador’s Assassin Shouted Muslim Brotherhood Slogans You Stupid Worthless Media. This Means He Is Muslim Brotherhood. “Allah Akbar” yells Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, a former police officer after he shot the Russian ambassador “Andrei Karlov” at the Turkish capital Ankara. He then shouts the popular Muslim Brotherhood favorite Nasheed (hymnal) “Nahnu Allatheena Baya’u Mohammedan A’lal-Jihadi Ma Baqqayna Abada”. English: We are the ones who gave our allegiance (Bay’at) to Muhammad to continue our Jihad. We will never fail forever”.

Russia's ambassador to Turkey has been assassinated allegedly in retaliation for the crisis in Aleppo. The gunman reportedly said in Turkish "We die in Aleppo, you die here" before opening fire and injuring Ambassador Andrei Karlov.