NYT Report: Intercepted Russian Comms with Trump Campaign Under Federal Investigation

NYT blockbuster on Trump-Russian collusion mars inauguration

President Donald Trump's inauguration comes as a dark cloud looms over his administration which was elected with an unknown level of Russian assistance.

High-level communications between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign are being investigated by American law enforcement, an investigation that threatens to revel intimate collusion between a hostile foreign state and an incoming American administration, the New York Times reports.

The Times' Michael S. Schmidt, Matthew Rosenberg, Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo report this morning, (NYT):

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts.

It is not clear whether the intercepted communications had anything to do with Mr. Trump’s campaign, or Mr. Trump himself. It is also unclear whether the inquiry has anything to do with an investigation into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computers and other attempts to disrupt the elections in November. The American government has concluded that the Russian government was responsible for a broad computer hacking campaign, including the operation against the D.N.C. ...

Representatives of the agencies involved declined to comment. Of the half-dozen current and former officials who confirmed the existence of the investigations, some said they were providing information because they feared the new administration would obstruct their efforts. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the cases.

This is the first American adminstration that comes to power as serious questions now point to the possibility that the American president is a Russian asset.