Senior Russian intelligence and political officials discussed how to influence US President Donald Trump through his advisers according to information gathered by US spies last summer, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Citing three current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence, the newspaper said the conversations focused on Paul Manafort, then the Trump presidential campaign chairman, and Michael Flynn, a retired general who was then advising Trump.
US congressional committees and a special counsel named by the US Department of Justice this month are investigating whether there was Russian interference in last year’s US election, and the possibility of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
The controversy has engulfed Trump’s young administration since he fired FBI director James Comey two weeks ago amid the agency’s investigation of possible Russia ties.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations and Trump denies any collusion.
Former CIA director John Brennan on Tuesday told lawmakers he had noticed contacts between associates of Trump’s campaign and Russia during the campaign, and grew concerned Moscow had sought to lure Americans down “a treasonous path.”
In its report, the New York Times said some Russians boasted about how well they knew Flynn, who was subsequently named Trump’s national security adviser before being dismissed less than a month after he took office.
Others discussed leveraging their ties to Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine living in exile in Russia, who at one time had worked closely with Manafort, who was dismissed from Trump’s campaign, the newspaper reported.
Separately, Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, said via text message that he would testify before the House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, but was “still working out details.”
ABC News, which first reported on Page’s planned testimony, said he would testify before the House panel on June 6.
In a letter to the panel, Page accused Brennan of offering a “biased viewpoint” in Tuesday’s testimony.
Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, on Wednesday morning said it would subpoena Flynn in its probe into alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election after he declined to appear before the panel.
The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday they would subpoena two of Flynn’s businesses after he declined to hand over documents in its separate Russia probe.
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