U.S. intelligence agencies and the FBI are conducting multiple investigations to determine the full extent of contacts that President Donald Trump’s advisers and associates had with Russia during and after the 2016 campaign, according to four national security officials with knowledge of the matter.
Several agencies are conducting the inquiries into Russia’s efforts to meddle in the U.S. election and coordinating as needed, said the officials, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive matters. The investigations predate the dismissal of retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security adviser on Monday.
Trump associates whose activities the agencies are examining include his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, energy consultant Carter Page, longtime Republican operative Roger Stone and Flynn, two of the officials said. Manafort, in a statement to Bloomberg, said he “never had any connection to Putin or the Russian government — either directly or indirectly — before during or after the campaign.”
The FBI has two parallel ongoing investigations, one official said. A counterintelligence investigation is looking at Russian espionage activities and to what extent, if any, they involve communications with or collusion by U.S. officials. The second, a cybersecurity investigation, is probing the hacking of U.S. political groups and operatives.
For example, investigators are focusing on a phone call Flynn had in December with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., which was intercepted by intelligence agencies and shared with the FBI, the two officials said. The FBI interviewed Flynn about that communication shortly after Trump was inaugurated.
Leading congressional Republicans have joined calls by Democrats for a deeper look at contacts between Trump’s team and Russian intelligence agents Wednesday, indicating a growing sense of political peril within the party as new reports surfaced of extensive contacts between the two.
Senate Intelligence Committee staff started collecting information in January on its broader probe of Russia’s alleged interference in last year’s election, according to Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sits on the panel. Manchin said Wednesday he expects the committee to begin calling in witnesses starting later this month. Among those he would like to see testify are Flynn, Manafort and former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who was fired after she refused to defend Trump’s executive order on immigration.
“We’re going to do everything we can to be open and transparent,” Manchin said in an interview. “You need to clear it up.”
Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign director for only several months before being removed, denied that the campaign had any link to Russia.
“In the campaign, the only conversations on any topic that related to Russia, hacking etc were those following the coverage in the news,” Manafort said in his statement. “There was no link, that I am aware of, between the campaign or me with the Russian govt and anyone associated with it.”
The New York Times reported that Trump campaign aides and associates “had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before” the November 2016 election, citing four current and former U.S. officials the newspaper didn’t identify. It’s unclear if the talks pertained to Trump personally, and the Times reported that there’s been no evidence uncovered that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian attempts to influence the election.
Even before the report was published, top Republicans already were expressing rising concern about the issue following the ouster of Flynn, who the administration says may have misled the president and vice president about his communications with a Russian envoy.
Trump responded Wednesday by calling Flynn “a wonderful man” who has been “treated so badly” by the news media. Speaking at a White House news conference, Trump also decried the leaks of classified information. “It’s a criminal act,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump unleashed a string of tweets, taking aim at targets ranging from ” the fake news media” to a cover-up for ” Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign” to ” the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?),” which he said was “just like Russia.”
In the wake of Flynn’s ouster, several Republicans are starting to call for more robust probes of any potential Russia contacts, with Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying Wednesday that it is “imperative” that Congress investigate the matter.
“If in fact there are campaign contacts between Trump officials and Russian intelligence officers that would be a very serious event and would justify the Senate forming a select committee to look at all things related to Russia,” he said in a statement. “The Russians have been trying to break the backbone of democracies all over the world, and clearly in my view, interfered in the 2016 election.”
The Senate Intelligence probe, for example, doesn’t include oversight of FBI investigations because those largely fall outside the committee’s jurisdiction.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that she is happy with the intelligence panel’s probe so far, but that the FBI angle warrants oversight from the Judiciary Committee. She added that she would be speaking with Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley Wednesday afternoon to make that request.
The Trump administration was preparing to replace Flynn as early as last week, a senior administration official said. White House officials spoke with Robert Harward, a potential replacement for Flynn, last week and again on Monday, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss a personnel issue.
Harward is a retired Navy vice admiral who once served under Defense Secretary James Mattis at U.S. Central Command. Former CIA Director David Petraeus has also been under consideration. Former Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt on Bloomberg TV Wednesday denied reports he is a candidate to replace Flynn.
(c) 2017, Bloomberg ยท Chris Strohm, Steven Dennis
