Law enforcement officials became very concerned about the behavior of President Donald Trump in the days following the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, who began investigating whether he was working in Russia against US interests, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The investigation forced investigators in the area of anti-espionage to determine whether Trump was a potential threat to national security, and whether it was acting deliberately with Russia or inadvertently affected by Moscow.
FBI agents and some senior officials began to be suspicious of Trump's relations with Russia in the 2016 presidential election, but they did not conduct an investigation at the time because they did not know how to handle such sensitive and important investigations, the Times reported. Trump's behavior in the days following the May 2017 shooting, particularly two cases linking Komi's delay to a probe in Russia, helped move the anti-espionage part of the investigation, the newspaper said.
Trump's lawyer, Roddy Giuliani, told the Times that he was not aware of the investigation, but that the investigation had opened a year and a half ago and he had heard nothing, it appeared "they found nothing". Trump has also denied several times. Collusion with the Russians.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the report "ridiculous" and said Komi was fired as a "partisan infiltrator". He also argued that Trump was weak on Russia.
