Russian outreach to Trump campaign alarms experts

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

From suggestions of “political synergy” and offers of business deals to contact with more than a dozen people in then-candidate Donald Trump’s orbit, Russian outreach to the Trump campaign has a familiar and alarming pattern to experts in the intelligence field.

The attempts by Russians to establish contact, which were laid out in the latest court filings by special counsel Robert Mueller, were persistent, apparently targeted and more frequent than would be expected during a typical presidential campaign, former officials said after reviewing the documents.

“This pattern is what the Russians do everywhere else in the world,” said Steven Hall, a former CIA official. “It’s standard intelligence tradecraft.”

Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election for more than a year and has not revealed clear evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Much of the investigation is still under wraps, but the portrait emerging from court filings and other sources is striking to intelligence professionals.

“It’s all vintage Russian intelligence behavior,” said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA officer and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Trump, who has repeatedly lashed out at the probe, insisted in a tweet again this week that there was “NO COLLUSION” between his campaign and Russia. And it’s not unheard of for campaigns to be in contact at times with foreigners.

What’s “completely unusual” is the number of people involved, said Trevor Potter, who was general counsel for the late Sen. John McCain’s 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns. Typically, any such communications would be routed through the foreign policy team and the general counsel alerted, he said.

Court filings and Associated Press reporting identified contacts between at least 14 people linked to the Trump campaign and Russian nationals.