Trump accuses US spies of doling out secrets ‘like candy’
DONALD Trump yesterday said the scandal over his team’s dealings with Russia is a “conspiracy theory” as chaos in the White House reached fever pitch.
The US President railed against “this Russian connection nonsense” as it emerged that his advisers had constant contact with Russian intelligence agents during his election campaign.
On Twitter Mr Trump reignited his war with US intelligence agencies who he described as being “un-American” for leaking top secret information.
Mr Trump is still reeling from the resignation – after 24 days in the job – of his national security adviser Mike Flynn, for speaking to the Russians about sanctions then trying to cover it up.
Crazy
The President is now facing calls from both Republicans and Democrats for an independent inquiry into all his dealings with Russia, which has been dubbed “Kremlingate”.
The scandal has become a major crisis and Mr Trump’s biggest test just three weeks into his administration.
In six tweets Mr Trump said yesterday that the “fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred”.
He wrote: “This Russian connection nonsense is merely an attempt to cover up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign.”
Mr Trump said information was being “illegally” leaked by the intelligence agencies, which he said were acting “just like Russia”.
The President wrote: “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. “Very un-American!” He later added that Mr Flynn was a “wonderful man” who had been “treated very, very unfairly”.
He said that the leaks were a “criminal act” that had been done “illegally”.
Mr Trump has faced speculation about why he has a soft stance on Russia after he repeated the Kremlin line on its attacks on Ukraine and praised its President Vladimir Putin.
A report by former MI6 officer Christopher Steel last month alleged that there was collusion between the Trump camp and the Russians to win Mr Trump the election.
Mr Trump and his aides have repeatedly and publicly denied this was the case.
But yesterday the New York Times and CNN reported that high level members of his campaign staff were in constant contact with the Russians last year.
Mr Trump was briefed on the matter, which happened during a time when Russian hackers were trying to influence the US election to get Mr Trump elected.
The scandal began when communications between the Trump team and the Russians were picked up by routine surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA). When the conversations raised a “red flag”, the FBI asked the NSA to focus on a number of individuals and dig out archived conversations for analysis.
Among those being investigated is Paul Manafort, Mr Trump’s former campaign manager, who had to quit when it emerged he had been paid £10 million by a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.
Mr Manafort said: “I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers.
“I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.
“It’s not like these people wear badges that say: ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”
Yesterday a Russian spy ship was seen “loitering” 30 miles off the Connecticut coast, where a US Navy base is located.
On Tuesday it emerged that Russia had deployed a cruise missile that would breach a Reagan-era arms treaty in a move that appears designed to test Mr Trump.