The Russian ghost simply refuses to let go of the fledgling Donald Trump administration. A day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn quit over his pre-inauguration phone conversations with the Russian Ambassador, The New York Times on Wednesday reported that Trump’s campaign aides had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during the year prior to the November 2016 election.
Trump took to the Twitter to rubbish the report, dubbing the claim of Russian connection “non-sense” and terming the NYT report a “cover-up” for the “many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign”. “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable,” he tweeted on Wednesday morning.
Citing current and former US officials, The Times spoke of phone records and intercepted calls pointing to the repeated contacts that the Trump campaign aides and other associates had with Russian intelligence officials. It, however, said there was no evidence as yet that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians on the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in a bid to influence the US presidential race.
Trump slammed the intelligence agencies as well for allegedly leaking classified information. “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by “intelligence” like candy. Very un-American!” he tweeted, adding: “Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBIIJ). Just like Russia.”
While his alleged nexus with Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been the constant refrain in the liberal US media for the past many months, Trump sought to point out that Russia annexed Crimea during the Obama administration, quizzing: “Was Obama too soft on RussiaIJ”
The new disclosures by the NYT came just as the White House was struggling to contain the fallout from the resignation of NSA Flynn over his phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak prior in the weeks prior to Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
Changing tack on Flynn’s departure, the White House said on Tuesday that Trump sought and got the NSA’s resignation because of “eroding trust”, insisting that he did not break the law in his conversations with the Russian envoy.
“There is not a legal issue but rather a trust issue,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, adding the circumstances had created a “critical mass and an unsustainable situation”. “The President must have complete and unwavering trust for the person in that position,” he said.
Democratic lawmakers are demanding an independent probe that should go well beyond Flynn’s departure into the relations of the Trump White House with Putin’s Russia. “This is larger than Flynn,” House Democratic Caucus chairman Joseph Crowley said, adding, “The real question with respect to Flynn is: What did President Trump know, and when did he know itIJ Did the president order Flynn to call the RussiansIJ”
Republican leaders, however, made it clear that they have no plans to go that path, with Speaker Paul Ryan saying their focus on repealing Obamacare, not to dig deeper into the Flynn resignation issue.