816 was in line with Trump’s stance. Mashburn stated that when he saw the word “appropriate assistance,” he believed that Gordon had violated Mashburn’s 817 directive not to intervene. 7. Post-Convention Contacts with Kislyak Ambassador Kislyak continued his efforts to interact with Campaign officials with responsibility for the foreign-policy portfolio—among them Sessions and Gordon—in the weeks after the Convention. The Office did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government. a. Ambassador Kislyak Invites J.D. Gordon to Breakfast at the Ambassador’s Residence On August 3, 2016, an official from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the United States wrote to Gordon “[o]n behalf of” Ambassador Kislyak inviting Gordon “to have breakfast/tea with the Ambassador at his residence” in 818 Washington, D.C. the following week. Gordon responded five days later to decline the invitation. He wrote, “[t]hese days are not optimal for us, as we are busily knocking down a constant stream of false media stories while also preparing for the first debate with HRC. Hope to take a raincheck for another time when things quiet down a bit. Please pass along my regards to the 819 Ambassador.” The investigation did not identify evidence that Gordon made any other arrangements to meet (or met) with Kislyak after this email. b. Senator Sessions’s September 2016 Meeting with Ambassador Kislyak Also in August 2016, a representative of the Russian Embassy contacted 820 Sessions’s Senate office about setting up a meeting with Kislyak. At the time, Sessions was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 821 would meet with foreign officials in that capacity. But Sessions’s staff reported, and Sessions himself acknowledged, that meeting requests from ambassadors increased substantially in 2016, as Sessions assumed a prominent role in the Trump Campaign and his name was mentioned for potential cabinet- 822 level positions in a future Trump Administration.