WE GO WAY BACK

Report: Russians Discussed Trump Associates Before He Even Ran for President

As early as spring 2015, U.S. intel officials reportedly overheard Russians talking about Trump acolytes.

Russian government officials were heard discussing Donald Trump associates months before he ran for president, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. According to current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the newspaper, U.S. intelligence overheard the conversations as early as spring 2015, and “In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.” It is unclear which Trump associates the Kremlin discussed or whether they were tied to the Trump’s eventual presidential campaign. The officials reportedly didn’t think much of the vague conversations when they first heard them, but now, in light of Donald Trump Jr. having met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer on campaign matters, investigators are revisiting the intercepted chats.