Trump evades question about working for Russia

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump did not directly answer when asked whether he currently is or has ever worked for Russia after a published report said law enforcement officials, concerned about his behavior after he fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017, had begun investigating that possibility.

Trump said it was the “most insulting” question he’d ever been asked. The New York Times report cited unnamed former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

Trump responded to the story during a telephone interview broadcast on Fox News Channel after host Jeanine Pirro asked the Russia question. “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked,” he said. “I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written, and if you read the article you’ll see that they found absolutely nothing.” Trump never answered Pirro directly, but asserted that no president has taken a harder stance against Russia than he has. His claim was disputed by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said almost all sanctions on Russia arose not in the White House but in Congress.

The Times reported that FBI agents and some top officials became suspicious of Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s behavior in the days around Comey’s May 2017 firing helped trigger the counter intelligence part of the probe, according to the Times, as investigators sought to evaluate whether Trump was a threat to national security and determine whether he was deliberately working for Russia or had unintentionally been influenced by Moscow.

Robert Mueller took over the investigation when he was appointed special counsel soon after Comey’s firing. The overall investigation is looking into Russian election interference and whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russians, as well as possible obstruction of justice by Trump. The Times says it’s unclear whether Mueller is still pursuing the counter intelligence angle. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said the report “may well suggest what it was that helped start this investigation in the first place .” He and other Democratic senators said the Mueller investigation must be allowed to run its course.

A new Washington Post report, citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials, said Trump went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin even from officials in his own administration. In the Fox News interview, Trump questioned why the Post made such a “big deal” out of his discussions with Putin. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also defended the president, who he said was “burned earlier by leaks of other private conversations.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said he intends to ask the FBI director if there was a counterintelligence investigation into the president. “If this really did happen, Congress needs to know about it and what I want to do is make sure how could the FBI do that?”