Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers told special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and Senate investigators last week that President Trump had asked each of them to publicly state his campaign associates did not collude with Russia in the November election, according to a report Thursday.
Trump was said to have approached the men after former FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee in mid-March that the FBI was investigating “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
However, Coats and Rogers clarified that Trump never ordered them to interfere in the federal investigation, according to CNN.
Both men met individually with the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. Sources at the closed briefings later described the room as tense because senators could not get specific answers out of either person on what Trump had asked of them.
The CNN report echoes an earlier report from May that Trump had asked them to publicly refute allegations he or his team tried to rig the election.
