Former Trump adviser: I gave the campaign 'the chance to intervene' in controversial Ukraine platform change

pulse

September 22, 2017 10:18 PM

The altered amendment has come back into the spotlight amid reports about the former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

The Trump campaign's national-security policy representative for the Republican National Convention said Friday that he gave campaign colleagues the chance to "intervene" when an amendment to the GOP's draft policy on Ukraine was introduced in Cleveland last July.

"They appreciated the heads up and asked me to keep them posted," Gordon said in another message. "So aware yes, involved no. Not in my judgment at least."

It was controversial if you hold Donald Trumps express views on Russia

The tweak to the amendment was scrutinized earlier this year when

Manafort and Trump have denied having anything to do with softening the language.

"I wasn't involved in that," Trump said in an interview with ABC after the convention. "Honestly, I was not involved...they softened it, I heard, but I was not involved."

had been in touch with his longtime employee Konstantin Kilimnik as late as July 2016. Kilimnik is a Russian-Ukrainian operative with suspected ties to Russian intelligence.

In one email sent days before the RNC's platform debate kicked off, Manafort asked Kilimnik to relay an offer of private briefings about the campaign to a Russian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin.

"to significantly elevate the Ukraine-Russia issue beyond the already strong position of RNC and Trump campaign."

"It was controversial if you hold Donald Trump's express views on Russia, but it wasn't controversial with regard to GOP orthodoxy on the issue," the committee member said.

actively pressuring ramped up that pressure

Gordon, for his part, pointed to a column he wrote in 2015 "in which I included a line saying we should arm" Ukraine. He also argued Friday that the altered amendment "strengthened GOP position in favor of Ukraine" in other provisions, such as a call for more robust sanctions.

"Yet in 2016 I was representing the Trump Campaign, not the Gordon Campaign," he said of the removal of the lethal-weapons language.

pulse