WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Monday flatly denied that he worked for Russia, and he called FBI officials who launched a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether he did "known scoundrels" and "dirty cops."
Trump's comments to reporters as he left the White House came in response to reports that an FBI investigation that was opened after Trump fired then-Director James Comey in May 2017 included a component to determine whether the president was seeking to help Russia.
"I never worked for Russia," Trump said as he prepared to leave for an agricultural event in New Orleans, adding: "I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question. ... It's a big, fat hoax."
Trump didn't directly answer the Russia question Saturday in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a personal friend.
He was asked about a New York Times report that law enforcement officials began investigating, in 2017, whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against U.S. interests.
Trump said the question was "insulting," but he did not directly deny it.
White House aides expressed regret over the weekend that the president did not more clearly and forcefully deny being a Russian agent on Saturday when asked by the usually friendly Fox News host, according to three White House aides and Republicans close to the White House. The three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.
On Monday, he did not equivocate and also attacked Comey and others in the FBI responsible for the investigation of possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential campaign.
That investigation is being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed after Trump fired Comey.
"He was a bad cop and he was a dirty cop," Trump said of Comey.
The president also attacked former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe as a "liar." McCabe made the decision to open the counterintelligence component of the investigation of Trump.
Speaking more broadly of FBI leadership at the time, Trump used the terms "known scoundrels" and "dirty cops."
Trump and Comey have sparred repeatedly, particularly since the release of a book last year by Comey that describes Trump's presidency as a "forest fire" and portrays the president as an ego-driven congenital liar.
McCabe was fired last year, and a grand jury is weighing possible charges against him alleging he misled investigators in a leak probe.
Democrats including Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois have said the reports highlighted the need for Mueller to finish his investigation without interference. Durbin said Sunday on ABC's This Week that Trump's pick for attorney general William Barr needs to give lawmakers 'iron-clad' assurances he won't interfere in the matter.
Over the weekend, a Washington Post story said Trump went to great lengths to hide details of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump on Monday called the article "fake news."
According to a separate report in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn't have official note takers present during a more than two-hour meeting with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017. Many top administration officials never were briefed on the discussion, the Journal said, citing several officials familiar with the matter.
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner and Devlin Barret of the Washington Post; by Darlene Superville, Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press; by Terrence Dopp and Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News; and by John T. Bennett of CQ-Roll Call.
A Section on 01/15/2019