Gordon told POLITICO in a series of exchanges that he wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing and that he wasn’t aware of any suspect activities by Manafort or other campaign officials or advisers. He said investigators were probing other people involved in pushing the platform change that the Trump campaign opposed, though he would not identify them.
“Investigators are rightly looking into whether or not crimes were committed by individuals connected to Ukraine, including possible FARA violations and other illegal activities,” Gordon wrote, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. “I applaud them for conducting a thorough investigation as there are clearly two sides to the GOP Platform controversy.”
Gordon said it would be up to Mueller to reveal whether the special counsel’s office had reached out to him or interviewed him, and he declined to provide specifics of his talks with congressional investigators except to say that they covered a range of topics. He agreed to speak on the record to POLITICO only via text message exchanges, given what he said was the sensitivity of the investigations and efforts by some Trump opponents to thrust him into the middle of them.
The “stakes are too high for error. Prison, impeachment proceedings, lawsuits,” he wrote in one text message.
“Impeachment of a President at stake,” he wrote in another. “Would prefer people stop trying to use my head as a battering ram.”
“It seems that I needed to do this and I was advised to do it,” said Denman, who said she proposed the pro-Ukraine amendment because she thought it was in line with the GOP position and in favor of “people fighting for their freedom.”
“I was told why I should not discuss anything further,” she added. “I know I’m not being very helpful, but I’m locked down.”
Denman is not suspected of any wrongdoing, according to people familiar with her situation, but she likely will be asked to provide documents and testimony in the coming weeks to help investigators lock down the details of what happened behind the scenes during the week before the convention in which the platform was hammered out.
“I represent Diana, and I’m not commenting,” said Robert N. “Bob” Driscoll, her lawyer. A former deputy assistant attorney general, Driscoll lists as some of his specialties representing clients involved in congressional and Department of Justice investigations.
Details of the amendment fight remain in dispute. Denman said that after her proposal was offered, Gordon intervened to lobby members of the GOP foreign policy platform committee, with help from other Trump campaign officials. Gordon has denied that, but he acknowledged asking the subcommittee to table the amendment until the end of the deliberations so he could alert campaign officials.
The amendment was tabled, and the language for the official party platform ultimately was changed to offer “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine, which Gordon said reflected the original draft language.
One of the things investigators want to know is who Gordon was consulting with, and why, during the extended period when the campaign was fighting the proposed change.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, queried Page about the platform change during a seven-hour interview with the committee last week, according to a transcript released on Monday.
Schiff asked Page who he had communicated with about the platform change, referring him to an email he sent to Gordon, other campaign advisers and at least one campaign official that said, “As for the Ukraine amendment, excellent work.”
“Does it refresh your recollection at all about what other interactions you may have had with the campaign about the amendment?” Schiff asked, according to the transcript.
“No,” Page replied. “This … is my only interaction that I vaguely recall. And this expresses my personal opinion. And that’s all that was.”
Schiff also asked Page, “Did you ever communicate with Paul Manafort about the Ukraine amendment?”
“Absolutely not,” Page replied.
The Senate Intelligence Committee also has been looking at the platform issue as part of its broader probe, and has “interviewed every person involved in the drafting of the campaign platform,” Sen. Richard Burr, the committee chairman, said at a briefing last month.
Based on “feedback … from the individuals who were in the room making the decision,” Burr said, the committee had tentatively concluded that Trump campaign staff were “attempting to implement what they believed to be guidance to be strong, to be a strong ally in Ukraine but also leave the door open for better relations with Russia.”
But, he added, the matter was “not closed, open for the continuation.”
