Democrats say they will step up probe on Trump

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats Sunday pledged heightened scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s dealings with Russia, spurred by news reports of extraordinary secrecy surrounding his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the opening in 2017 of an FBI counter-intelligence investigation into whether Trump worked on behalf of the Kremlin.

Trump’s Republican allies in Congress and his administration defended him, impugning the motives of federal investigators, insisting the White House had been tough on Russia, and denouncing as “ludicrous” any suggestion that Trump had been compromised by Moscow.

The intensifying Russia-related furor coincides with a partial government shutdown that pushed over the weekend into a record-breaking fourth week. More than three-quarters of a million federal workers have been furloughed or are working without their salaries. They missed their first paychecks of 2019 last week.

There was little sign of any imminent breakthrough in ending the shutdown, whose effects are being more broadly felt with each passing week. Trump spent Sunday morning demanding on Twitter that Congress allocate funds for building a wall on the border with Mexico, a project Democrats vehemently oppose.

The president called into a conservative talk show on Saturday night to denounce a report in the New York Times that in 2017, after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into whether the president was acting as an agent for Russia.

Asked on Fox News whether he had ever “worked for Russia,” Trump fumed, but did not take the opportunity to directly respond to the query.

“I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked. I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written,” he said.

On Sunday news shows, several leading congressional Democrats expressed deepening concerns over Trump and Russia, after the New York Times report and a Washington Post story about Trump’s efforts to conceal what was said in meetings with Putin over the past two years.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said on “Fox News Sunday” that word of a counter-intelligence investigation was “alarming,” and that it showed the need for the wideranging Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller to proceed unimpeded.