Members of President Trump’s campaign team and the businessman’s associates made repeated contacts by phone with Russian intelligence and government officials in the year leading up to November’s election, though the topics of these conversations remains unknown to the public.
U.S. intelligence officials discovered the paper trail last year while investigating hacks by Russia into the Democratic National Committee’s server, according to a report.
The findings prompted a quiet investigation into whether Trump’s campaign team had colluded with the Russians. Officials who spoke with the New York Times said they have no evidence of it, but are still looking into the chatter, as well as financial information of all involved parties.
Among those the U.S. intel community heard on the phone was Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
The FBI is still looking into the depth of the communications between parties, as well as the DNC hack, but said these incidents are separate from ones that former national security adviser Mike Flynn was caught in.
Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey I. Kislyak, were wiretapped.The recordings revealed the two discussing sanctions that former President Barack Obama had imposed on Russia for hacking Democratic organizations and individuals.
Flynn had talked with Kislyak about those restrictions. In Trump’s first few weeks in office, some were reversed, possibly by coincidence.
