Latest developments in Russia probe

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

An FBI investigation and congressional probes into the Trump campaign and contacts with Russia continue to shadow the administration, each new development a focus of White House press briefings and attention on Capitol Hill.

Here are the latest developments and background on the scandal:

THE LATEST

A Senate Judiciary subcommittee says it will hear testimony in May from former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who was fired in the early days of the Trump administration, and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama.

The May 8 open hearing will be the first opportunity for the public to hear Yates’ account of her role in the firing of Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Separately, leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform say Flynn appeared to violate U.S. criminal law when he failed to seek permission for or inform the government about accepting tens of thousands of dollars from Russian organizations after a trip there in 2015.

Flynn’s lawyer said in a statement that Flynn disclosed the trip in conversations with the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he was its former director.

THE BACKGROUND

Hackers broke into the computer network of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign, which U.S. officials and cybersecurity experts have publicly tied to Russian intelligence services.

Stolen emails to and from top Democratic Party officials, including then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were released to the public last summer on the secret-sharing website WikiLeaks, followed in the fall by the hacked messages of John Podesta, the campaign chairman of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been blunt in their assessment that the hacks of Democratic email accounts were intended to benefit Trump and harm Clinton.

THE INVESTIGATIONS

FBI Director James Comey told Congress in March that a federal investigation examining Russian interference in the presidential election, and potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, began in late July.

The counterintelligence investigations are heavily classified, historically time-consuming and rarely result in criminal charges. It’s not clear when this one will end or whether anything criminal will be found, though Comey has said the investigation is being done with an eye on whether any laws were broken.