WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s
2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated
contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before
the election, according to four current and former American officials.
American
law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the
communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia
was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the
Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The
intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign
was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to
influence the election.
The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.
But
the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement
agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring
while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.
The
officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump
campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the
Russian side, the contacts also included members of the government
outside of the intelligence services, they said. All of the current and
former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the
continuing investigation is classified.
The
officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul
Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months last
year and had worked as a political consultant in Ukraine. The officials
declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls.
The
call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of
information that the F.B.I. is sifting through as it investigates the
links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government, as well
as the hacking of the D.N.C.,
according to federal law enforcement officials. As part of its inquiry,
the F.B.I. has obtained banking and travel records and conducted
interviews, the officials said.
Mr.
Manafort, who has not been charged with any crimes, dismissed the
officials’ accounts in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “This is
absurd,” he said. “I have no idea what this is referring to. I have
never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have
never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or
the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.”
He added, “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”
Several
of Mr. Trump’s associates, like Mr. Manafort, have done business in
Russia. And it is not unusual for American businessmen to come in
contact with foreign intelligence officials, sometimes unwittingly, in
countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply
embedded in society. Law enforcement officials did not say to what
extent the contacts might have been about business.
The
officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed
on the calls, the identity of the Russian intelligence officials who
participated, and how many of Mr. Trump’s advisers were talking to the
Russians. It is also unclear whether the conversations had anything to
do with Mr. Trump himself.
A report from American intelligence agencies that was made public in January concluded that the Russian government had intervened in the election in part to help Mr. Trump, but did not address whether any members of the Trump campaign had participated in the effort.
The intercepted calls are different from the wiretapped conversations last year
between Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser,
and Sergey I. Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States. In
those calls, which led to Mr. Flynn’s resignation on Monday night, the two men discussed sanctions that the Obama administration imposed on Russia in December.
But
the cases are part of American intelligence and law enforcement
agencies’ routine electronic surveillance of the communications of
foreign officials.
The
F.B.I. declined to comment. The White House also declined to comment
Tuesday night, but earlier in the day, the press secretary, Sean Spicer,
stood by Mr. Trump’s previous comments that nobody from his campaign
had contact with Russian officials before the election.
“There’s
nothing that would conclude me that anything different has changed with
respect to that time period,” Mr. Spicer said in response to a
question.
Two days after the election in November, Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy Russian foreign minister, said “there were contacts” during the campaign between Russian officials and Mr. Trump’s team.
“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Mr. Ryabkov told Russia’s Interfax news agency.
The
Trump transition team denied Mr. Ryabkov’s statement. “This is not
accurate,” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said at the time.
The
National Security Agency, which monitors the communications of foreign
intelligence services, initially captured the calls between Mr. Trump’s
associates and the Russians as part of routine foreign surveillance.
After that, the F.B.I. asked the N.S.A. to collect as much information
as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls, and to
search through troves of previous intercepted communications that had
not been analyzed.
The
F.B.I. has closely examined at least three other people close to Mr.
Trump, although it is unclear if their calls were intercepted. They are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative; and Mr. Flynn.
All of the men have strongly denied that they had any improper contacts with Russian officials.
As
part of the inquiry, the F.B.I. is also trying to assess the
credibility of the information contained in a dossier that was given to
the bureau last year by a former British intelligence operative. The
dossier contained a raft of allegations
of a broad conspiracy between Mr. Trump, his associates and the Russian
government. It also included unsubstantiated claims that the Russians
had embarrassing videos that could be used to blackmail Mr. Trump.
The
F.B.I. has spent several months investigating the leads in the dossier,
but has yet to confirm any of its most explosive claims.
Senior F.B.I. officials believe that the former British intelligence officer who compiled the dossier, Christopher Steele, has a credible track record,
and he briefed investigators last year about how he obtained the
information. One American law enforcement official said that F.B.I.
agents had made contact with some of Mr. Steele’s sources.
The agency’s investigation of Mr. Manafort began last spring as an outgrowth of a criminal investigation into his work
for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and for the country’s
former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. It has focused on why he was in
such close contact with Russian and Ukrainian intelligence officials.
The
bureau did not have enough evidence to obtain a warrant for a wiretap
of Mr. Manafort’s communications, but it had the N.S.A. scrutinize the
communications of Ukrainian officials he had met.
The
F.B.I. investigation is proceeding at the same time that separate
investigations into Russian interference in the election are gaining
momentum on Capitol Hill. Those investigations, by the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees, are examining not only the Russian hacking but
also any contacts that Mr. Trump’s team had with Russian officials
during the campaign.
On
Tuesday, top Republican lawmakers said that Mr. Flynn should be one
focus of the investigation, and that he should be called to testify
before Congress. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on
the Intelligence Committee, said the news about Mr. Flynn underscored
“how many questions still remain unanswered to the American people more
than three months after Election Day, including who was aware of what,
and when.”
Mr.
Warner said Mr. Flynn’s resignation would not stop the committee “from
continuing to investigate General Flynn, or any other campaign official
who may have had inappropriate and improper contacts with Russian
officials prior to the election.”
by https://www.nytimes.com/
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