U.S. officials: Comey told Trump last week about claims of Russian blackmail material
Following an intelligence briefing on Friday at Trump Tower, FBI Director James Comey took President-elect Donald Trump aside and spoke with him one-on-one about the existence of unverified claims that Russia has compromising information on him, several high level U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday.
Trump's campaign manager and adviser, Kellyanne Conway, has been making the rounds saying otherwise. On Wednesday, she told CNN's Anderson Cooper the network's report earlier this week that Trump was briefed about the claims was "just false," and a night earlier, she told Seth Meyers that intelligence officials "never briefed him on it." When Meyers pressed her, Conway announced that Trump "has said he is not aware" of being briefed.
The officials say Comey and Trump spoke following a briefing on Russian hacking of the presidential election. The claims that Russia has compromising information on Trump came from a dossier compiled by a retired British spy, and a two-page summary on the dossier was put together and reportedly attached to the Russia hacking report. This addendum was not discussed during the intelligence briefing. Vice President Joe Biden's office confirmed on Thursday both Biden and President Obama received the summary last week as well.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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