Top Russian officials 'discussed how to influence Donald Trump through his aides' before election

They specifically targeted Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort

Russians felt that they could influence Mr Flynn because they knew him well (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Senior Russian intelligence and political officials were caught by American intelligence agents discussing how to insert influence over Donald Trump’s campaign last year, the New York Times reports.

American spies collected information last year on conversations that focused on Paul Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman, and Michael Flynn, who later got a job in the White House as a national security adviser but was forced to step down from that post because he misrepresented conversations he had with Russians to Vice President Mike Pence. Both of those men had indirect ties to Russian officials at the time.

The Russian officials felt confident they could use the two men to help shape Mr Trump’s opinions on Russia.

The intercepted conversations included Russians boasting that they knew Mr Flynn really well. Others discussed levering relationships with Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine exiled in Russia, who used to work closely with Mr Manafort.

Those intercepted conversations are among many clues that US intelligence agencies got ahold oaf when they began investigating whether Trump campaign officials were helping Russians influence the 2016 election. Other clues included direct conversations between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

The information was considered to be credible enough by intelligence officials that it was passed along to the FBI, which then opened up an ongoing counterintelligence investigation. It wasn’t clear if Mr Manafort or Mr Flynn were directly influenced by Russians, or if Russians attempted to do so. They have both denied any collusion.

The spies who provided the recent details about the Russian discussions were granted anonymity by the New York Times, but top officials have spoken broadly about the investigation previously.

“I was convinced in the summer that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election. And they were very aggressive,” former CIA Director John Brennan testified Tuesday. Even by the end of the presidency of Barack Obama he had "unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons, involved in the campaign or not, to work on their behalf again either in a witting or unwitting fashion," he said.

Mr Flynn was forced to step down from his post as national security adviser less than a month into the Trump presidency after it was determined that he had misled Mr Pence when he said that he did not discuss Russian sanctions during the presidential transition period. Since his resignation, it has also been learned that the Trump administration had repeatedly dismissed warnings about Mr Flynn, and that Mr Trump had allegedly attempted to get former FBI Director James Comey to stop the investigation into Mr Flynn's role in Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign.