Records reported to show Trump allies' Russia contacts

WASHINGTON -- Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former U.S. officials.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

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The officials said that one of the advisers picked up on the calls was Paul Manafort, who was Trump's campaign chairman for several months last year and had worked as a political consultant in Russia and Ukraine. The officials declined to identify the other Trump associates on the calls.

The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting as it investigates the links between Trump's associates and the Russian government, as well as the Democratic National Committee hack, according to federal law enforcement officials. As part of its inquiry, the FBI has obtained banking and travel records and conducted interviews, the officials said.

Manafort, who has not been charged with any crimes, dismissed the accounts of the U.S. officials in a telephone interview Tuesday.

"This is absurd," he said. "I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or [Vladimir Putin's] administration or any other issues under investigation today."

Manafort added, "It's not like these people wear badges that say, 'I'm a Russian intelligence officer.'"

Several of Trump's associates, like Manafort, have done business in Russia, and it is not unusual for U.S. businessmen to come in contact unwittingly with foreign intelligence officials in countries like Russia and Ukraine. Law enforcement officials did not say to what extent the contacts may have been about business.

Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, which Russian intelligence officials were on the calls and how many of Trump's advisers were talking to the Russians. It is also unclear whether the conversations had anything to do with Trump himself.

A published report from U.S. intelligence agencies that was made public in January concluded that the Russian government had intervened in the election in part to help Trump, but did not address whether any members of the Trump campaign had participated in the effort.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Goldman and Matthew Rosenberg of The New York Times.

A Section on 02/15/2017