Senate Intelligence Committee wants Russia-related records to be preserved

WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee is seeking to ensure that records related to Russia’s alleged intervention in the 2016 U.S. elections are preserved as it begins investigating that country’s ties to the Trump team.

The panel sent more than a dozen letters to “organizations, agencies and officials” Friday, asking them to preserve materials related to the congressional investigation, according to a Senate aide, who was not authorized to comment publicly. The Senate Intelligence Committee is spearheading the most comprehensive probe on Capitol Hill of Russia’s alleged activities.

The letters went out the same day that FBI Director James Comey huddled for almost two hours with the committee’s Senate members in a closed-door briefing in the Capitol. Senators emerged from that meeting especially tight-lipped about what transpired, with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., breaking the silence by tweeting the next day that he was “now very confident” the committee “will conduct thorough bipartisan investigation of #Putin interference and influence.”

The committee’s missives came just days after President Donald Trump asked Michael Flynn for his resignation as national security adviser, after the revelation that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, between Mr. Trump’s election and inauguration. Mr. Flynn’s departure prompted an outcry among lawmakers for closer scrutiny of his contact with Mr. Kislyak.

Democrats in particular are demanding a full record of documents and transcripts pertaining to the Flynn call, in which intelligence officials say he discussed sanctions on Russia, “before they destroy them,” as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., put it. The Senate aide would not clarify whether the letters were sent specifically to individuals affiliated with Mr. Trump.

At the same time, U.S. investigators are examining whether hundreds of thousands of dollars that flow every month from Russia to its former soldiers living in the United States are somehow mixed up in efforts to undermine last fall’s U.S. election and put Mr. Trump in the White House.

Meanwhile overseas, prosecutors in Ukraine are investigating whether a member of Parliament, Andrii Artemenko, committed treason by working with two associates of Mr. Trump’s to promote a plan for settling Ukraine’s conflicts with Russia.