Illegal leaks felled Flynn, Trump says

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump lashed out at the nation's intelligence agencies Wednesday, saying that his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was brought down by illegal leaks to the news media.

"From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked," Trump said at a White House news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. "It's a criminal action, criminal act, and it's been going on for a long time before me, but now it's really going on. And people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton."

With his statement and a series of early-morning posts he made on Twitter, Trump tried to shift attention from questions about contacts with Russia by Flynn and others close to the president, arguing that the scandal is not those contacts but the leaks about them. He revived his claim that the allegations of a "Russian connection" were nothing more than a Democratic conspiracy, fed to a receptive news media to distract from the mistakes made by Clinton during the campaign.

The White House has said Trump demanded Flynn's resignation Monday night after it was revealed that Flynn, a retired Army general, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with a Russian diplomat.

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But on Wednesday, the president said that Flynn had "been treated very, very unfairly by the media," undercut by "documents and papers that were illegally -- I'd stress that, illegally -- leaked."

Earlier, he had posted on Twitter, "Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?). Just like Russia"

The New York Times and The Washington Post had reported on the contacts Flynn had with Russia's ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn initially told Pence and others that he and Kislyak did not discuss matters of substance, like U.S. sanctions against Russia, but in the days after Trump's inauguration, the Justice Department notified the White House that Flynn had not been forthright about the conversations.

The Times also disclosed broader contacts between Russian intelligence officials and people with ties to the Trump campaign -- including Paul Manafort, who briefly served as Trump's campaign chairman -- and Trump's business empire during and after the campaign, and other news organizations followed with similar reports. Current and former U.S. officials interviewed by the Times declined to identify other Trump associates contacted by the Russians.

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Manafort, in a statement, said he "never had any connection to [President Vladimir] Putin or the Russian government -- either directly or indirectly -- before during or after the campaign."

"In the campaign, the only conversations on any topic that related to Russia, hacking etc were those following the coverage in the news," Manafort said. "There was no link, that I am aware of, between the campaign or me with the Russian govt and anyone associated with it."

The president declined to address the reports of broader contacts with the Russians and, as he has at other times in recent days, took questions at his news conference only from pre-selected news organizations.

The president ignored shouted questions about whether his advisers were in touch with Russian officials. His spokesman Sean Spicer said he wasn't aware of any such contacts and panned the Times report for relying on "unnamed sources."

Earlier Wednesday, Trump tweeted that "classified information is illegally given out by 'intelligence' like candy. Very un-American!"

He also wrote, "The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!"

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The president also praised a column by Eli Lake of Bloomberg View that criticized the selective leaking of intercepted communications between Flynn and Kislyak. Lake went on to suggest, however, that Flynn had been sacrificed to protect other officials, potentially including the president himself.

Trump rejected allegations that his policy toward Russia was being compromised.

"Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?" he posted on Twitter.

Multiple investigations

According to four national security officials with knowledge of the matter, intelligence agencies and the FBI are conducting multiple investigations to determine the full extent of contacts that Trump's advisers and associates had with Russia during and after the campaign.

The investigations predate Flynn's dismissal.

The FBI has two parallel ongoing investigations, one official said. A counterintelligence investigation is looking at Russian espionage activities and to what extent, if any, they involve communications with or collusion by U.S. officials. The second, a cybersecurity investigation, is looking into the hacking of U.S. political groups and operatives.

Leading congressional Republicans on Wednesday joined calls by Democrats for a deeper look at contacts between Trump's team and Russian intelligence agents.

"This is a moment for Republicans to put country ahead of party," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. said. "There's only one or two times like this in your political career where you face a moment like this where what's good for your country may not be good for your party."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday that it is "imperative" that Congress investigate the matter.

"If in fact there are campaign contacts between Trump officials and Russian intelligence officers that would be a very serious event and would justify the Senate forming a select committee to look at all things related to Russia," he said in a statement. "The Russians have been trying to break the backbone of democracies all over the world, and clearly in my view, interfered in the 2016 election."

Some GOP lawmakers, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have resisted, saying that the existing congressional committees will continue their investigations into Russian interference in the presidential election.

The Senate Intelligence Committee staff started collecting information in January on its broader investigation of Russia's alleged interference in last year's election, according to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sits on the panel. Manchin said Wednesday that he expects the committee to begin calling in witnesses starting later this month. Among those he would like to see testify are Flynn, Manafort and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired after she refused to defend Trump's executive order on immigration.

"We're going to do everything we can to be open and transparent," Manchin said in an interview. "You need to clear it up."

Of the leaks of information, Sen. Tom Cotton said they are harmful and "counterproductive."

"I'm certainly concerned about the leaks of very, very sensitive classified information," the Arkansas Republican said. "The Intelligence Committee ... is also going to be taking a look at the leaks that have been occurring that ought not to have occurred."

Meanwhile, Democrats called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from any executive branch investigation into the matter.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sessions should not be involved because of potential conflicts of interest and because of Justice Department regulations that prohibit individuals with political ties to the subjects of an investigation from leading it.

"When the FBI looks into a matter, they do so alongside prosecutors from the Justice Department," Schumer said. "Those prosecutors should not be reporting to the first senator who endorsed Donald Trump's campaign."

Sessions was one of Trump's earliest and staunchest backers in Congress.

A group of 11 Democrats wrote to Sessions and urged him to appoint an independent special counsel to investigate possible illegal communications between Flynn and representatives of the Russian government. The special counsel also would examine any attempts by Flynn and other White House officials to hide any wrongdoing, they said.

The group, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, included Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Schumer did not sign the letter to Sessions.

Russian denials

In Moscow, the Kremlin's spokesman dismissed reports of intercepted phone calls between Russian intelligence officials and members of Trump's presidential campaign.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Putin, pointed to the anonymity of the sources, saying that the reports "are not based on any facts, do not point to actual facts."

Asked about the allegations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that they "prove once again there is a major internal, political game, you can call it bargaining, in the United States."

Russian lawmakers were more direct in trying to defend Trump.

"This is not about information but about a high-precision information bomb," Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Federation Council's information committee, tweeted. "The goal is to blow up the Trump administration."

Separately, Russian officials on Wednesday dismissed a statement by Spicer, Trump's spokesman, who said Trump expects Russia to return Crimea, which it annexed after a hastily called referendum in March 2014.

"We never give back our territory," Zakharova told reporters.

Peskov echoed Zakharova's remarks and added that Putin has been patient about explaining to his counterparts that the people of Crimea asked to join Russia because of their fears about the new government in Ukraine, and would keep delivering this message to the White House, too.

Information for this article was contributed by Mark Landler and Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times; by Julie Pace, Vivian Salama, Jonathan Lemire, Eric Tucker, Ken Thomas, Jill Colvin, Erica Werner, Catherine Lucey, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Richard Lardner, Erica Werner and Alan Fram of The Associated Press; by Chris Strohm and Steven Dennis of Bloomberg News; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 02/16/2017