Idk maybe because when they did it Trump wasn't the president. Remember one president at a time. Obama was the president. He had just put sanctions against the Russians when they were talking about it. And the guy they were talking to, his bank was sanctioned. And the reason it's different is that the "back channel" was just to keep the US from hearing. The Russians, a foreign government, would be free to hear the convos. Oh and before you go with the unmasking blah blah blah, this was before they knew of those allegations. So there was no need to prevent US officials from hearing and not an adversarial country. This is hypocrisy on anyone defending this part. If it were to come out that Obama did this with a country, the right would be up in arms. It's shady to prevent our country from hearing it but to allow the Russians to by going to there SCIF. Why are we even pretending this is normal or appropriate?
Originally Posted by Austin Dude
Do you know what a "back channel" is?
It's a non-official channel used so that your own government will not know what you are saying.
There are good reasons for that.
Like I said, John Kennedy used secretly delivered letters put back and forth by reporters and journalists to share letters with Khruzhov without anyone in the American government knowing. And when the CIA and FBI found out they were furious with him.
That's why Jimmy Carter on Youtube offers to Trump to be a channel of communication with Putin, so that the US government will be by-passed.
That's the way it works and there's nothing sinister about it.
Oh but when Trump uses it it's of course TREASON!