Report: Investigators wiretapped Manafort before and after the election

Both before and after the 2016 presidential election, U.S. investigators wiretapped President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders, several people with knowledge of the situation told CNN.

Three people said the intelligence collected includes communications that suggest Manafort may have encouraged Russians to help with the Trump campaign, three people told CNN, but two of those same sources said the evidence was not conclusive. The wiretaps were authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and started after Manafort became the subject of a 2014 FBI investigation, centering around the consulting work he did for Ukraine's pro-Russia Party of Regions, CNN reports.

The surveillance ended at some point in 2016, then started up again and extended into early 2017, one person told CNN. The details of these communications have been passed along to Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team; it is unclear if any communications between Manafort and Trump were picked up.

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