Trump aides, Russians kept in close contact
Undisclosed calls, e-mails surface
MICHAEL Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and e-mails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, according to current and former US officials familiar with the exchanges.
The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by the FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the US election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Six of the previously undisclosed contacts were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the US, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.
Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the November 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to bypass the US national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current US officials said.
The US Justice Department has appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential campaign and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Trump and his aides have repeatedly denied any collusion with Moscow.
Meanwhile, the US media revealed that Trump’s team knew about a separate FBI probe into Michael Flynn’s lobbying work for the Turkish government before giving him the job of national security adviser.
Officials familiar with the matter told the New York Times the disclosure was made to the transition team’s chief lawyer on January 4, two weeks before Trump’s inauguration. The newspaper suggested the president-elect knew about the investigation into the Flynn Intel Group’s contract with a Dutch firm owned by a Turkish businessman to run a campaign to allegedly discredit US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for staging a 2016 failed coup.
Flynn was forced to resign after only 24 days in office.
However, claims of close ties between Trump’s election campaign and the Kremlin persisted.
Last week, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, raising fears of a cover-up.
An explosive report emerged in the New York Times suggesting Trump had asked Comey to close the probe into Flynn’s links to Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied US claims that it meddled in the 2016 presidential vote, calling such allegations absurd.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow did not have official contacts with Trump’s team during the campaign.
In January, the Trump White House initially denied any contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.
The White House and campaign advisers have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during that time.
The sources said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far.
But the disclosure could increase pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full account of interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the Kremlin during and immediately after the 2016 election.
The 18 calls and electronic messages between April and November 2016 came as hackers engaged in what US intelligence concluded was part of a Kremlin campaign to influence the outcome of the election in favour of Trump over his Democratic challenger, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.