Exclusive: Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians: sources


Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian
officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails
during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and
former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being
reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian
interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between
Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Six of the previously undisclosed contacts
described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia's
ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn,
Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former
officials said.

Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two
discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump
and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national
security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved
relations, four current U.S. officials said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...idUSKCN18E106?