Thursday, May 25, 2017

Two U.S. Intelligence officials say Trump inappropriately asked them to deny evidence of collusion

Rss@dailykos.com (jen Hayden) · Monday, May 22, 2017, 7:25 pm

Donald Trump was reportedly so upset about James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he sought out senior intelligence officials and tried to pressure them to ”publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election”. From the Washington Post:

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president

Like Comey, Rogers took and shared extensive notes on the conversation:

Trump’s conversation with Rogers was documented contemporaneously in an internal memo written by a senior NSA official, according to the officials. It is unclear if a similar memo was prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to document Trump’s conversation with Coats. Officials said such memos could be made available to both the special counsel now overseeing the Russia investigation and congressional investigators, who might explore whether Trump sought to impede the FBI’s work.

At a minimum, the case for obstructing justice appears to be getting stronger by the minute.

Source
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/JmOFU5y5Lp0/-Two-U-S-Intelligence-officials-say-Trump-inappropriately-asked-them-to-deny-evidence-of-collusion

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