News. New controversy for u. S. President trump and his campaign advisers. Contacts with russia. Multiple officials told cnn aides were in near Constant Contact with officials throughout the campaign. Heres pamela brown. Advisers close to donald trump were in constant communication during the campaign with russians known to u. S. Intelligence. Current and former intelligence Law Enforcement and administration fortunatelies said President Trump and president barack obama were briefed on the details of the communications between operatives and People Associated with the Trump Campaign and the trump business. According to officials pardon me with the matter, both the frequency of the communications raised a red flag with intelligence and Law Enforcement. The communications were intercepted targeting russian officials and nationals known to u. S. Intelligence among several senior trump advisers communicating with russian nationals where the Campaign Manager and Michael Flynn. Flynn stayed on and resigned as the National Security adviser last night. Officials in the communications between the Campaign Staff and representatives are not unusual, but this stood out due to the frequency and the level of the trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intend, but adding to concerns were intercepted communications between russians before and after the election, discussing the belief that they had special advice to trump. It is unclear if they were exaggerating, but it came into that they were growing that russians were trying to tilt the election in Donald Trumps favor. This investigation still very much under way and the fbi in the intelligence community. Cnn, washington. Lets get more on this. Joining me now from the bureau chief and jill, as we heard from that report, trump advisers were in frequent communications with russian operatives during the Trump Campaign. Having covered russia, would this communication be 2340er8 and routine in a campaign . Because the reports talk about constant or very frequent as the level of communication and the frequency of it, it does appear not to be your average communication. Thats a red flag. What it means is unclear. This is where it gets murky. You can have a benign interpretation perhaps or more benign which would be perhaps it was business. Some of the people who were in communication have business interests or in the can case of the chairman of his campaign for a while, political consultant who had a type of reason for doing that. Because we dont know exactly what they were talking about, that could be a darker scenario that some are alleging, saying interference in the american election. Until we know precisely what those communications were, its impossible to say. The frequency is not normal. Not average. We will wait to know more about those. One question it does raise is what type of relationship does President Trump have with president putin. Have you ever seen an administration so close to russia . No. I havent. I have to be honest. Certainly the comments that President Trump has made, lets see the moral equivalents that he made about a week ago when he said that the person who is leading the discussions said putin is a killer and then mr. Trump said we do a lot of killing too. That type of thing is very rare. You dont find that at all among somebody who is a candidate let alone a president of the us. There is a lot that is very, very different about this presidency. I think in the kremlin, they understand that very well and they are looking at this daflly. They heard about better relations and cant we get along, but they realize there is no policy yet. As we watch the policy develop, the russians are looking at the stronger comments about crimea. Look at the stronger comments about ukraine. Look at more critical comments coming out by this administration about russia. So its beginning to look a little bncht than the way it looked during the campaign. Russia i dont think has any idea they can predict what mr. Trump will say or do. They are standing back hopeful, but concern about where all of this is headed. Its too early to find out how the kremlin will react to this. What do we know about Michael Flynns connections in moscow. This is just coming before he was forced to step down. Woor are we know he was communicating with the ambassador who was ambassador to the United States. We know he appeared i believe it was last year at a dinner for rt, russian television. There are other comments he has made. There too, we dont know exactly why he was doing that. We havent seen that transcript. Was it a general conversation . We believe according to reports that it was about sanctions and the russians said it was not. There is a lot of murkiness. Until the facts and the actual communications are released, we wont know. I can say one thing. This is such an irony. The president who came into office saying he wanted to improve relations, it may end up to be worse than ever. Thats ironic. Right now you have a lot of knives out in washington for the administration. They are worried and they want to have investigations and they want to have errorings. It will be much harder to have a type of same balanced relationship with russia in that circumstance. Plenty of murkiness and plenty of unknowns too. Always great to get your perspective. And joining me here in los angeles, republican pollster Justin Wallen and strategist. Thanks for being here. Lets start with you. Why would you think that the campaign officials, high level would be in such regular contact with russian operatives in the campaign . Its interesting because whats amaze being this story is how much we dont know. What we know is there seems to be a lot of activity. It seems to be more than Previous Administrations. The administration does things differently and the campaign did things differently. When people were talking about five or six calls made. Were they calling back . We have russia involved. We have Michael Flynn during the campaign. The guys like this, why would they be in regular contact . What would be a reason . It could simply be an intent to establish a relationship or it could be sinister. The president doesnt like to think the russians are not our friends, but they like to destabilize. They are masters at it and no reason why they wouldnt be doing it to both sides. We dont know if they were call backs and what we dont know is conte content. None of us have seen what was said. They are asking for that. There is a lot of what we dont know. This is stunning and unprecedented. The cover up on its own is major. The trump spokes woman said there was no communication between Trumps Campaign and russia. That was a lie. Sean spicer said the same thing more recently. That was a lie. Michael flynn said he didnt remember if he talked about sanctions. That was a lie. There must be something pretty serious with a cover up of this size going on. Or it could be minor. I dont jump to the conclusion that people are lying. People may flynn especially may say this man has done important global things. Certainly he was lying. He may not have found it important enough. The day of the sanctions, you call the ambassador and none of us as private citizens think a major event just happened. I think im going to interfere and tell them that. There is a question being asked and it was about trust. The president lost trust in Michael Flynn. He knew about this. Why was it not until they broke the news that trust became a reason to resign. That comes back to content again. Thats dangerous. What it it take for someone who has been in his kosher. Flynn is not an easy person to get along with him. He put up with him and what would get the president to say we have to jetson this. You will see at the very least something that said he was disingenuous with the pice president and that doesnt fly. We heard for more calls for Kellyanne Conway to resign. She was rooting for ivanka trumps line. Go buy ivankas stuff. Im going to go shopping and get some myself today. I own some of it and i will give a free commercial. Go buy it today. There is a call for her to face ethics charges. You have flynn resigning and this happening with Kellyanne Conway and a scrutiny of state with mar a lago with the japanese Prime Minister. Donald trump said the real story is about the illegal leaks. Thats not the really story. Surely there is a sense of chaos there. We are three weeks in. Park are not just calls for Kellyanne Conway to be censured, but that would be the biggest scandal of the year in a normal administration. Letting someone who is paying your Company Money take a selfie with the Nuclear Football would be the biggest scantal. Those were not even the biggest scandals of the week. We may have an administration who is collaborating with russia. This is providing aid and comfort to a foreign power. There needs to be an independent investigation and im thrilled a lot of republican senators said the sim thing. When it comes to the investigation and russia, the Republican Party is being the most hawkish. We are not hearing a lot of that. On the question of there has been a lot. In any other administration, there is an extraordinary amount of activity, you have to look at it and say these people are intend on accomplishing their agenda. With all of that, they are all new, you are going to have mess ups. These are embarrassing. With russia, once he got his cabinet more and more and nikki haley said things that are firmer and speak to Serious Problems with russia, particularly in crimea. We will see more and more of that. And sean spicer touched on that. He was talking about russia today. Lets have a listen. The irony of the situation is that the president has been incredibly tough on russia. He continues to raise the issue of crimea which the Previous Administration allowed to be seized by russia. President trump made it very clear he expects the russian government to deescalate and return crimea. At the same time he fully expects to and wants to be able to get along with russia. Unlike Previous Administrations so we can solve many problems together facing the world like the threat of isis and terrorism. Sean spacer saying that the president has been tough. He hasnt. His people have. Nikki haley was strong about russia before the security council. President trump has been warm the whole time. We know about President Trump is that if he doesnt like what you are saying, he throws you under the bus. If she said something out of line, i guarantee and i think you agree within maybe five minutes, we would see a tweet that pus her in her place. There is a lot of open questions. Does russia have something on him . The fact that there is a story about flynn talking to the Russian Ambassador, we have known about the conversation for two months. Did trump not care that he called the Russian Ambassador . Did he know what Michael Flynn said or did he direct him to talk about the sanctions . He sat on it for two months and took no action until it was a media controversy. He is aware of the dynamics of power. There are three powerful entities. America, china, and russia. He said whether you agree, it behooves us to move forward in areas of danger with those that have power and are willing to use it. And i suspect that this is all part of somehow the new york will deescalate certain things and reprioritize. Its all well and good, but a lot of folks would like to see better relations with russia, but there is a difference between collaborating and good relations. He called on his opponent to hack between the campaign and the russians. We dont need a smoking gun. We have it. Did he shoot the gun . It could have just been put in his hand. The world is more nuanced than that. You do not perform effectively on the global scale without making bed fellows that arent pret. Thats the reality of life. Right. Before we go, i have to get this in. We will be talking with rick later, but there was a comment that struck me. The head of u. S. Special Operations Command said this about the white house at a conference. Our government continues to be an unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon. We are at nation at war. They are saying that in a conference setting. That is extraordinary. Its terrifying and there is not a lot of folks outside the white house itself and folks going on who know whats going on. We have folks in the u. S. Senate, Mitch Mcconnell and richard burr calling for investigation because they have not been kept in the loop. Until we have an independent investigation not including Jeff Sessions and a private committee investigation, we will not know what happened. We have to leave it there. We are going to have you back next hour. We are not done by a long shot. So much to talk about. Still to come, another provocation from russia and how the kremlin might be testing the Trump Administration. A new policy and what to expect from the trumpnetanyahu meeting at the white house. Intr. Now with taxes and fees included. Get 4 lines of unlimited lte data for 40 bucks each. All unlimited. All in switch to tmobile today. So this year, theyre getting a whole lot more. People just cant get enough of me and my discounts. Box 365, the calendar. 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Gov if you are just joining us, the breaking news this hour, multiple sources sold cnn that aides to then candidate donald trump said they were in communication with russia during the campaign. Normally that contact is not unusual. Heres the thing. These talks stood out for a few reasons. The frequency with which they happened and the high rank of the people involved. Just yesterday you remember Michael Flynn resigned due to his contact with russian officials. Lets get more on all of this. We go live from moscow. Its early there. Any reaction from the kremlin with regards to this breaking news . Its very early here in russia and quiet on this front. The issue of contacts between the Trump Campaign and russia was something we heard about in the past and the days after the election. The it Deputy Foreign minster told the agency that there were contacts between the Trump Campaign and russia. He didnt elaborate, but he came back to the topic in january before the innaugzration that the u. S. Media was whipping up the fever around these contacts and using it as a way of sparking fears of a socalled russian threat. We have seen the security adviser leave his position because of mishandling his contacts with russia. This is something that russia will be concerned about whether or not it will make President Trump make a hawkish stance towards russia than he has been is a way of falling in line with many in his party. Something that had a lot of focus in the Russian Media are those comments we had by sean spicer saying that trump expects crimea to be returned to ukraine and that is something that is of concern here. On the comments, what was the reaction . Its getting a lot of attention. We have seen that President Trump has been not going out of his way not to criticize or insult president putin. If he corrects crimea to be returned, that would echo the comments from nikki haley a couple of weeks ago when he came out in harsh terms and said sanctions would not be lifted unless crimea was returned to ukraine and blamed them for the escalation of tensions. A few days later, we saw President Trump in the interview with fox news tell bill o riley in response to hi