Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Sources: Spy chief asked to sway FBI
The nation’s top intelligence official told associates in March that President Donald Trump asked him if he could intervene with thenFBI Director James Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security
adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials.
On March 22, less than a week after being confirmed by the Senate, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats attended a briefing at the White House with officials from several government agencies. As the briefing was wrapping up, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
The president then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey’s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was investigating whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential race.
After the encounter, Coats discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested
would be inappropriate, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.
The events involving Coats show the president went further than, as was alleged earlier, just asking intelligence officials to deny publicly the existence of any evidence showing collusion during the 2016 election.
Coats will testify today before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Lawmakers on the panel said they would press him for information about his interactions with the president regarding the FBI investigation.
The question of whether the president obstructed the Russia investigation is expected to take center stage this week with Comey’s testimony on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Comey associates say that before the director was fired in May, the president had asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn, and Comey refused.
Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, declined to comment on whether Trump asked Coats to intervene with Comey regarding the Flynn investigation. Hale said in a statement: “Director Coats does not discuss his private conversations with the President. However, he has never felt pressured by the President or anyone else in the Administration to influence
any intelligence matters or ongoing investigations.”
A spokesman for Pompeo declined to comment on the private discussions. The
White House referred questions to outside lawyers, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly denied any coordination took place between his campaign and the Russian government, which, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, stole emails embarrassing to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaked them to undermine her campaign.
Flynn had served as a surrogate for Trump during the campaign and then was fired after just 24 days as national security adviser over revelations he misrepresented his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Though the Office of the Director of National Intelligence oversees other intelligence agencies, the FBI director operates independently of the director on many matters. For example, Comey kept James Clapper, Coats’ predecessor in the national intelligence job during President Barack Obama’s administration, in the dark about the bureau’s investigation into possible coordination.
REQUESTS FOR DENIALS
A day or two after the March 22 meeting, the president followed up with a phone call to Coats, according to officials familiar with the discussions. In the call, Trump asked Coats to issue a public statement denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Again, Coats decided not to act on
the request.
Trump similarly approached Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to ask him to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of coordination between the Russians and the Trump campaign, as The Washington Post previously reported, according to current and former officials. Like Coats, Rogers refused to comply with the president’s request.
Trump announced in January that he was nominating Coats to serve as director of national intelligence, an office that is responsible for overseeing U.S. intelligence agencies and for briefing the president on global developments.
In February, as tensions flared between intelligence agencies and the White House over Russia and other matters, some of Trump’s advisers floated the idea of appointing a New York billionaire, Stephen Feinberg, to undertake a review of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Coats, who was preparing for his confirmation hearing, felt blindsided, officials said.
The White House backed away from the idea of naming Feinberg after Coats and members of the intelligence community and Congress raised objections.
Officials say Trump’s advisers have since revived their proposal to appoint Feinberg to a senior position, possibly to review the roles of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other intelligence agencies.
Some officials said they viewed the prospective appointment of Feinberg as an effort to put pressure on intelligence agencies to close ranks with the White House.
In an appearance last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Coats refused to provide details about his interactions
with Trump.
But Coats indicated that he would cooperate with the Russia investigation now being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Under questioning by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Coats said that if asked, he would provide details of his conversations with Trump to Mueller.
Coats also said that if he is called before an investigative committee, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee, “I certainly will provide them with what I know and what I don’t know.” He said the Trump administration has not directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to withhold information from members of Congress conducting oversight.
FLYNN HANDS OVER PAGES
As part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation, Flynn on Tuesday turned over about 600 pages of documents to the committee, according to a congressional aide speaking on condition of anonymity.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, confirmed that the panel had received documents from Flynn, but he declined to characterize the material or say how many pages had
been received.
“We can’t make any judgment on whether he’s fully complied because we’ve got to review the documents,” Warner said.
Flynn previously had invoked his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination in rebuffing an earlier subpoena from the committee. After the panel narrowed the scope of that subpoena and issued additional ones for records from two of his businesses, Flynn agreed to turn over some documents.
On Tuesday, committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said the panel sought Flynn’s business files — including travel, expense and phone records — to determine whether those records “would give us insight as to where he was when he was, what reimbursements he received, what expenses he
might have had.”
Burr said it was still possible Flynn may turn over more records. He noted that the committee is still working with Flynn to see whether he will agree to be interviewed as part of the panel’s investigation.
In addition to the Senate panel, Flynn is under investigation by other congressional committees as well as the special counsel over his contacts with Russia. Among those contacts under scrutiny is a December meeting of Flynn; Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a White House adviser; and Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.