Former National Security Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday told the New Yorker every case officer he's talked to thinks Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer was a Russian intel operation.
"My god, this is just such traditional tradecraft," Hayden said.
Reporter Rolf Mowatt-Larsen first floated the idea in a recent Washington Post article, where he stated the meeting, attended by Trump Jr., White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, "is in line with what intelligence analysts would expect an overture in a Russian influence operation to look like," and that it may have been the "green light Russia was looking for to launch a more aggressive phase of intervention in the U.S. election."
Hayden told the New Yorker the fact the attendees didn't report the meeting to the FBI showed their willingness.
"At the end, they have established that these guys are willing," Hayden said. "How do I put this? They did not reject a relationship."
Kushner on Monday said he didn't recall the emails setting up the meeting, and that it ended up being uneventful, anyways.
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