U.N. envoy: Russian prints on '16 election

FILE - In a Monday, March 27, 2017 file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks to reporters outside the General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.
FILE - In a Monday, March 27, 2017 file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks to reporters outside the General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says there's no question Russia was involved in the U.S. presidential election and said President Donald Trump would fully support strong action against Russia once investigations are complete.

Speaking in television interviews broadcast Sunday, Nikki Haley contended there is no contradiction between her tough stance and Trump's desire for good relations with Russia. She said Trump "has not once" told her to stop "beating up on Russia" over issues such as its actions in Crimea and its dispute with Ukraine.

When asked whether she believes Trump should publicly take a harder Russia stance, she said: "Of course, he's got a lot of things he's doing."

"There's no love or anything going on with Russia right now," Haley said. "They get that we're getting our strength back, that we're getting our voice back and that we're starting to lead again. Honestly, at the United Nations, that's the No. 1 comment I get is that they're just so happy to see the United States lead again."

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However, Haley conceded that the United States needed Russia's help to deal with bigger problems.

"We need their pressure when it comes to dealing with ISIS," she said, using the acronym for the Islamic State militant group. "We also need their pressure when it comes to dealing with China and North Korea."

Trump as president persuaded Haley to leave the governorship of South Carolina to represent the U.S. at the United Nations. Sunday's news-show appearances were her first since becoming the nation's top diplomat at the U.N. She and Defense Secretary James Mattis have both called out Russia for its actions during the 2016 U.S. campaign.

"Well, certainly, I think Russia was involved in the election," Haley said on ABC's This Week. "There's no question about that. And I think when they finish with all of this process, yes, they need to address Russia, they need to act, and they need to make sure they're loud about it.

"We don't want any country involved in our elections, ever. We need to be very strong on that."

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U.S. intelligence agencies report that Russia tried to help Trump's campaign effort. The FBI as well as congressional committees are investigating whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump associates during the campaign.

When ABC's Martha Raddatz asked Haley about the difference between what Trump says about Russia -- particularly President Vladimir Putin and that nation's hacking of U.S. computers -- and what she says about Russia, Haley replied, "I think we're both saying the same thing. It's just being reported differently."

Trump tweets

Putin has denied his country meddled in the 2016 contest between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton. While Trump himself has said he believes Russian operatives hacked Democratic Party emails during the election, he has repeatedly lambasted as "fake news" any suggestion that he or his staff had connections to Russia.

Trump continued to criticize those suggestions over the weekend, tweeting: "It is the same Fake News Media that said there is 'no path to victory for Trump' that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!"

He added on Sunday: "The real story turns out to be surveillance and leaking! Find the leakers." Last month, Trump tweeted his accusation that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Haley said world leaders weren't worried about Trump's habit of making pronouncements via Twitter.

"No one is talking to me about the president's tweets. No one is talking to me about any of those issues," Haley said on CBS' Face the Nation. "Foreign leaders are picking up the phone and calling him if they have an issue. And that's what they're doing with me. If they have an issue, they are calling me. They're not sitting there texting me and saying, 'What was this tweet about?'"

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said it was indisputable that Russia attempted to influence the U.S. election, reiterating his call for a special select committee.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he didn't think another review was necessary, citing the bipartisan work from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"I think they clearly laid out that they're going wherever the facts take them," McConnell said, referring to Republican Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina and Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the panel. "We don't need yet another investigation. We know the FBI is looking at it from their perspective."

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, said Russia was not worried about what any U.S. investigation might reveal. "We insist that any blaming that Russia could have been interfering in domestic affairs of the United States is slander," he said.

Heat from House

Meanwhile, the White House is also dealing with criticism over its behind-the-scenes role in helping the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, view secret intelligence reports that he says pointed to inappropriate leaking.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, went to the White House on Friday to view materials that he said were "precisely the same." He declined on Sunday to describe the contents, but criticized the unorthodox disclosure to Nunes, suggesting that the material was more likely an "effort to deflect attention" and "create a cloud through which the public cannot see."

Last month, Nunes made a point of going to the White House to brief Trump on intelligence he had viewed that, he said, showed that some Trump campaign officials had been caught up in the government's surveillance of foreign nationals and that their identities had perhaps been improperly unmasked.

News reports later revealed, however, that at least three senior White House officials were involved in handling the intelligence information that Nunes had received -- prompting an outcry from Democrats, and even some Republicans, that Nunes had politicized his committee and was simply acting on behalf of the president to try to support Trump's claims of wiretapping.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, Schiff argued that Nunes and the White House were trying to distract from the broader question of what role, if any, Russia had played in the U.S. election.

"It certainly is an attempt to distract and to hide the origin of the materials, to hide the White House hand," Nunes said. "The question is, of course, why? And I think the answer to the question is this effort to point the Congress in other directions, basically say, 'Don't look at me, don't look at Russia, there is nothing to see here.' You know, I would tell people, whenever they see the president use the word 'fake,' it ought to set off alarm bells. And I think that is really what has gone on here."

Schiff also disputed the administration's claim, including from press secretary Sean Spicer, that the files were produced "in the ordinary course of business."

"Well, the question for the White House and for Mr. Spicer is, the ordinary course of whose business? Because, if these were produced either for or by the White House, then why all of the subterfuge? There's nothing ordinary about the process that was used here at all."

He also said he was not prepared to answer one of the central questions his committee is investigating: whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Russians to damage Clinton and her campaign.

"I don't think we can say anything definitively at this point," Schiff said. "We are still at the very early stage of the investigation. The only thing I can say is that it would be irresponsible for us not to get to the bottom of this."

Schiff also said he has a "very healthy skepticism" of former national security adviser Michael Flynn's offer to cooperate with congressional investigators in exchange for immunity.

"There is a lot we need to learn before entertaining anything like this," Schiff said. "We don't want to do anything that will interfere in any case that the Justice Department may decide to bring. We also have to determine whether he really can add value to our investigation, whether we need him to learn information we can't learn from other sources. So, it's very early, I think, even to be considering this."

Last week, Flynn said he would cooperate with congressional investigators if they grant him immunity from prosecution. The committees are trying to determine whether Flynn or other Trump associates coordinated with the Russian government in last year's election.

Trump has said that Flynn's request isn't an indication that he did something wrong, but rather attempts to avoid the ramifications of a "witch hunt."

Information for this article was contributed by Hope Yen, Julie Pace and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press; by Ashley Parker and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. of The Washington Post; and by Ros Krasny, Mark Niquette and Shobhana Chandra of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 04/03/2017

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