U.S. spy agencies, FBI said to probe Trump team’s Russia calls

By Steven Dennis and Chris Strohm

Bloomberg

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 President Donald 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 Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sits on the panel. Manchin said 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.”

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 in a string of tweets Wednesday morning, 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.”

This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

Like some of his allies, Trump also focused on the leaks that are driving the reports about links with Russia. “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”

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.