Revealed: Trump's attorney general met Priti Patel as he sought UK help to investigate Russia probe

[Denzil_DC]

Donald Trump's attorney general met Priti Patel this summer as he sought British help in an investigation casting doubt over the Russian 2016 election meddling probe, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

William Barr met Ms Patel, the Home Secretary, in London shortly after she got the role while both attended a conference for the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.

They met on July 29 - just days after Mr Trump had reportedly urged Boris Johnson to help with the investigation, which is looking at how the probe into Mr Trump's Kremlin links had begun.

Multiple Home Office spokesmen and aides declined to rule out on-the-record that Ms Patel and Mr Barr discussed the investigation.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/04/revealed-trumps-attorney-general-met-priti-patel-sought-uk-help

I'm not sure how long this story's legs will be yet, and so far only the Telegraph (where you need to register or subscribe to read beyond what I've quoted above) and Mail are covering it.

FWIW, here's some of the Mail's version:

Donald Trump's Attorney General 'met Priti Patel as he sought British help investigating inquiry into Russian meddling in 2016 US election five days after she became Home Secretary'
...
Their meeting came days after Mr Trump reportedly asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson to assist him as he tried to discredit the Mueller investigation into possible connections between Russia and his election campaign.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the Commons on Wednesday that no British government member, including the prime minister, would collude with Trump to discredit intelligence agencies looking into Russian interference of the 2016 election campaign.
...
Mr Johnson's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox also met Mr Barr at the Five Eyes conference and said had the investigation been raised he would have declined to talk about it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7540735/Trumps-Attorney-General-met-Priti-Patel-sought-British-help-investigating-Russian-inquiry.html

The journalistic formula "X happened as Y ..." can sometimes be misleadingly used to link two events that may be unrelated except in occurring around the same time. But the last sentence quoted from the Telegraph piece - "Multiple Home Office spokesmen and aides declined to rule out on-the-record that Ms Patel and Mr Barr discussed the investigation." - is bound to fuel speculation, especially given Patel's disastrous past record as a loose cannon in foreign affairs.