Trump
Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence
New York Times
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO
FEB. 14, 2017
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
that 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 Russian government outside of the intelligence
services, the officials 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 Russia and 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 D.N.C. hack, 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 accounts of the American officials 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.”
Mr. Manafort 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 may have been about business.
Officials would not
disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, which Russian
intelligence officials were on the calls, 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 published 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,
President Trump’s former national security adviser, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the
Russian ambassador to the United States. During 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
the routine electronic surveillance of communications of foreign officials by
American intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
The White House did not
immediately respond to a request for comment. The F.B.I. declined to comment.
Two days after the
election in November, Sergei A. Ryabkov, the deputy Russian foreign minister, said that
“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 said in an interview with the
Russian 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 communications between Mr. Trump’s associates and
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 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 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 salacious allegations
about connections 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 allegations.
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 F.B.I. 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 F.B.I.’s
investigation into 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. The investigation 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. closely 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
that the news surrounding Mr. Flynn in recent days 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 that 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.”
Correction: February 14, 2017
An earlier version of
this article misstated the number of people (in addition to Paul Manafort) whom
the F.B.I. has examined. It is at least three, not at least four.
