Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper questioned Monday whether President Trump knew at the time that Russians were meeting with members of his 2016 election campaign.
“With each subsequent revelation of yet another meeting between someone from the Trump camp and Russians, it gets harder and harder to believe that he didn’t know about at least some of them,” Mr. Clapper told Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“Just statistically, it’s illogical,” added Mr. Clapper, the Obama administration’s top intelligence official. “It’s difficult for me to believe that he didn’t know about some of these meetings.”
Mr. Clapper’s remarks came on the heels of recent revelations involving a meeting that took place during the race between a Russian man offering to help the Trump campaign and Roger Stone, Mr. Trump’s former campaign adviser.
Mr. Stone conceded Sunday that fellow former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo arranged for him to meet in May 2016 with a Russian man called Henry Greenberg who offered to sell information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Mr. Stone said he refused Mr. Greenberg’s offer, and both former campaign advisers have since accused him of being an FBI informant.
Led by Mr. Clapper at the time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded in January 2017 that Russia interfered in the 2016 race to hurt the Mrs. Clinton campaign’s and help Mr. Trump’s. The Department of Justice subsequently appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the election, including any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Mr. Mueller’s office recently confronted Mr. Caputo with text messages involving Mr. Stone’s previously undisclosed meeting with the Russian, The Washington Post first reported Sunday.
Rudy Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys in the Russia probe, said he doubts the president knew about the May 2016 meeting with Mr. Stone and the Russian.
“The president doesn’t know a darn thing about Russian collusion from Roger Stone, from anybody else. And I would suspect he never talked to the president about it,” Mr. Giuliani told CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.
At least six members of Mr. Trump’s election campaign met with Russians during the race, The Post reported Monday. Mr. Trump, on his part, has repeatedly decried the Russia probe as a “witch hunt,” including as recently as Tuesday morning on Twitter.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.