The news that members of President Donald Trump’s circle had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election might have been less concerning if the president had responded by explaining or condemning the contacts and accepting the need for an impartial investigation. Instead, on Wednesday morning, he dashed off a half-dozen tweets in which he curiously both denied the news and attacked the leakers who disclosed it.
“The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred,” Trump tweeted. “This Russian connection nonsense is merely an attempt to cover up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign.” Then he insisted, “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!”
The emerging White House line that questions about a Trump campaign-Russia connection merely reflect a war by the intelligence community on the president makes little sense. In fact, the FBI, not some rogue spy agency, has taken the lead role in investigating contact with Russian officials by associates of Trump. That would be the same agency whose questionable disclosures about its probes of Clinton’s emails may have gained Trump the presidency.
To be clear, there is still plenty the public does not know. The nature of the apparent communications remains murky. Direct evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to sway the election continues to be lacking.
It is heartening to hear that the FBI has devoted significant resources to investigating any connections between Trump’s circle and a foreign government committed to weakening the United States and its allies. Because he was so close to the Trump campaign, Attorney General Jeff Sessions should recuse himself from any and all decisions relating to that investigation.
Still, the latest news, on the heels of the forced resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn over contacts with the Russian ambassador, underscores the dire need for a broader, bipartisan probe of Russia’s election-year meddling.