Trump campaign's Russia ties: Who's involved

Rice certainly briefed Obama at minimum. It was and is a political ploy to damage trump. That's an abuse of power. When your desired end justifies any means... including illegality... it deserves to be rooted out. There wouldn't be this leftist political tactic without an orchestrated abuse of power. Stay tuned comrades.

PkrBum wrote:Rice certainly briefed Obama at minimum. It was and is a political ploy to damage trump. That's an abuse of power. When your desired end justifies any means... including illegality... it deserves to be rooted out. There wouldn't be this leftist political tactic without an orchestrated abuse of power. Stay tuned comrades.

Since the Republican party controls the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Executive branch and pretty soon the Supreme Court, how come this "leftist tactic" is happening? What power does the left have to abuse?

DUH!

PkrBum wrote:

othershoe1030 wrote:

PkrBum wrote:http://www.cbsnews.com/news/susan-rice-asked-for-unmasking-for-national-security-source-says/

tick tick tick

BOOM!

So what? another attempt at deflection. This tactic is so widespread that talk of shinny objects, smoke and mirrors is part of the daily comments on Anything having to do with the Trump/Russia investigation. Trump/Russia CONNECTIONS  have sprouted up like crabgrass with more being unearthed every day.

Have you seen the report about Carter Page confirming that he'd given information to two Russian spies in 2013?

With all these ties to the Russians it is amazing to me why 45 hasn't been put in an isolation cell already. Seriously, I mean can any of you imagine what the Republican reaction to a story even 1/100th as ugly as this would have been if Obama had been the president?

Here we have a WH who doesn't care about vetting their people. It cannot possibly be some sort of cosmic coincidence that there just happens to be people in the administration with ties of some sort to Russia. No one would believe that, would they? So did Putin pick them? Is this his payback for the election help?

On some occasions, the official added, it is necessary to know the identity of U.S. persons in order to understand the context and substance of the intelligence. There is nothing improper, unusual or political about such requests.

Ok... the Russia/trump thing has credibly... but the political creation of the issue does not?

If there were definite proof of Russian infiltration don't you think it would've been used to invalidate the election? The intelligence agencies are there for that. What happened was a leak before the election of the talkingpoint... it's snowballed now that you've lost the election. The leak was a political tactic.

WTF is wrong w/ you? If there was definite proof of Russia infiltration? They have proof,numnuts. It's how much it swayed the election which they'll never know. Sheesh!

Vikingwoman wrote:

PkrBum wrote:

othershoe1030 wrote:

PkrBum wrote:http://www.cbsnews.com/news/susan-rice-asked-for-unmasking-for-national-security-source-says/

tick tick tick

BOOM!

So what? another attempt at deflection. This tactic is so widespread that talk of shinny objects, smoke and mirrors is part of the daily comments on Anything having to do with the Trump/Russia investigation. Trump/Russia CONNECTIONS  have sprouted up like crabgrass with more being unearthed every day.

Have you seen the report about Carter Page confirming that he'd given information to two Russian spies in 2013?

With all these ties to the Russians it is amazing to me why 45 hasn't been put in an isolation cell already. Seriously, I mean can any of you imagine what the Republican reaction to a story even 1/100th as ugly as this would have been if Obama had been the president?

Here we have a WH who doesn't care about vetting their people. It cannot possibly be some sort of cosmic coincidence that there just happens to be people in the administration with ties of some sort to Russia. No one would believe that, would they? So did Putin pick them? Is this his payback for the election help?

On some occasions, the official added, it is necessary to know the identity of U.S. persons in order to understand the context and substance of the intelligence. There is nothing improper, unusual or political about such requests.

Ok... the Russia/trump thing has credibly... but the political creation of the issue does not?

If there were definite proof of Russian infiltration don't you think it would've been used to invalidate the election? The intelligence agencies are there for that. What happened was a leak before the election of the talkingpoint... it's snowballed now that you've lost the election. The leak was a political tactic.

WTF is wrong w/ you? If there was definite proof of Russia infiltration? They have proof,numnuts. It's how much it swayed the election which they'll never know. Sheesh!

There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies... a felony btw. They created a narrative and the useful idiots are off and running. Of course the media is ignoring it... just like you... lol.

PkrBum wrote:There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies... a felony btw. They created a narrative and the useful idiots are off and running. Of course the media is ignoring it... just like you... lol.

No proof of anything yet?? Ask ANYONE in the intelligence community and they'll give you an earful as to indisputable proof the Russians interfered. No, not at the polls, but in the realm of public opinion. And if you believe what you just said about the Obama administration -- or that there's any proof of that whatsoever -- you've definitely lost it, kid, and personally I've given up any hope that you're in touch or know wtf you're talking about. The only people "creating a narrative" right now are those in the White House who keep sending everyone (including the press) off on wild goose chases, hoping desperately to deflect attention from the Russian collusion question -- which WILL be answered eventually, their best efforts to thwart it notwithstanding.

March 22: "I don't know anything about unmasking"

April 4: "I ordered unmasking but broke no laws"

She'll be pleading the fifth in a few months. This has been a political ploy... if it was real collusion it would've been used immediately to strip the presidency from trump. Nice puppet show though.

Sal wrote:

PkrBum wrote:
There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies... .

This is a splendid exemplar of what Kellyanne Conway coined, "alternative facts".

The Trump administration is masterful at shoveling this BS, and there appears to be no shortage of appetite for it amongst the rubes like Pkr ...

... completely divorced from reality, but so very sure of their partisan hackery.

Where did this Russia narrative publicly originate?

Sal wrote:

PkrBum wrote: March 22: "I don't know anything about unmasking"  

April 4: "I ordered unmasking but broke no laws"

She'll be pleading the fifth in a few months. This has been a political ploy... if it was real collusion it would've been used immediately to strip the presidency from trump. Nice puppet show though.

Why are you using quotation marks?

Those aren't quotes, and you are full of shit.

Close enough. She's a confirmed political operative with no particular attachment to the truth.

PkrBum wrote:

Sal wrote:

PkrBum wrote: March 22: "I don't know anything about unmasking"  

April 4: "I ordered unmasking but broke no laws"

She'll be pleading the fifth in a few months. This has been a political ploy... if it was real collusion it would've been used immediately to strip the presidency from trump. Nice puppet show though.

Why are you using quotation marks?

Those aren't quotes, and you are full of shit.

Close enough. She's a confirmed political operative with no particular attachment to the truth.

It's Pkr's abuse of steroids that causes him to hear voices in his head. If the voices wanted to be useful they would tell him to shut up and stop making a complete ass out of himself.

Here's another one: "I shared nothing with nobody" ... or something like that. I guess that settles it.

Right? Lol... y'all are so easy.

"...There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies..."

Yes...there is proof. And I concur with everyone else who called you a LIAR...that's exactly what you are.

Floridatexan wrote:
"...There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies..."

Yes...there is proof.  And I concur with everyone else who called you a LIAR...that's exactly what you are.

LIAR is one of the nicest things he is called.

Floridatexan wrote:
"...There's no proof of anything yet except that the Obama admin used govt gathered intelligence to gain an advantage on political enemies..."

Yes...there is proof.  And I concur with everyone else who called you a LIAR...that's exactly what you are.

There was no Russia talkingpoint until Rice unmasked and either leaked it herself or "allowed" it to be (a crime). The latest is that there wasn't even a Russian element to what she was interested in... but I hope that is investigated. I highly doubt she didn't brief Obama... but who knows... yet.

But she'll just plead the fifth and nothing will happen... like usual under the Obama administration.

from NYT (comment from FB):

Rex Tillerson’s Company, Exxon, Has Billions at Stake Over Sanctions on Russia

By ANDREW E. KRAMER and CLIFFORD KRAUSS DEC. 12, 2016


https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/world/europe/rex-tillersons-company-exxon-has-billions-at-stake-over-russia-sanctions.html


MOSCOW — Now that President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to be the next secretary of state, the giant oil company stands to make some major gains as well: It has billions of dollars in deals that can go forward only if the United States lifts sanctions against Russia.

As head of America’s largest oil company, Mr. Tillerson has earned a friendship award from Russia and voiced skepticism about American sanctions that have halted some of Exxon Mobil’s biggest projects in the country.

But Mr. Tillerson’s stake in Russia’s energy industry could create a very blurry line between his interests as an oilman and his role as America’s leading diplomat.

“The chances that he will view Russia with Exxon Mobil DNA are close to 100 percent,” said Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a public interest group based in Washington.

A tall, strapping Texan, Mr. Tillerson guided Exxon’s entry into the sharp-elbowed oil politics of Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He has praised the country for its vast potential as an oil supplier ever since, developing close ties to the Kremlin leadership along the way.

Exxon Mobil has various projects afoot in Russia that are allowed under American sanctions. But others have been ground to a halt by the sanctions, including a deal with the Russian state oil company to explore and pump in Siberia that could be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Russian officials have optimistically called the agreement a $500 billion deal.

As for Mr. Tillerson personally, he was scheduled to retire next year from Exxon Mobil. According to company filings this year, Mr. Tillerson owned $218 million in company stock, and his pension plan was worth nearly $70 million.

Russia was already a focus of concern after the Central Intelligence Agency said the Kremlin had intervened in the American presidential election to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Now Mr. Tillerson’s career is igniting a debate over the blending of business and politics — and whether that could tip the scales in Russia’s favor on major policy decisions like the sanctions.

Speaking on Monday in Moscow, Carter Page, a supporter of Mr. Trump who described his former work for the Trump campaign as pulling together “new ideas” on foreign policy, said he was excited that Mr. Tillerson would probably put more of an emphasis on private sector business opportunities in relations between Russia and the United States.

“What makes me excited about new possibilities is the chance to really work on new things to improve more from a business standpoint,” Mr. Page said at a news conference.

Others were much warier of a Tillerson appointment.

“As secretary of state, he would be called upon to negotiate with world leaders like Vladimir Putin,” said Michael T. Klare, a professor at Hampshire College and the author of “The Race for What’s Left,” which delves into the rush for oil in the thawing Arctic.

“In these negotiations, one has to wonder what would influence the types of deals he is making,” Mr. Klare said. “Questions arise over whether his actions would be benefiting his company or the interests of the United States and its allies.”

Mr. Trump has called Mr. Tillerson a “player.” At an annual meet-and-greet for corporate chieftains with President Vladimir V. Putin at the St. Petersburg economic forum, Mr. Tillerson was a regular, his silver coiffure bobbing in the crowd of former spies who have become Russian government and corporate officials and now host the event.

Along with other American chief executives, Mr. Tillerson skipped the forum in 2014 to conform to White House pressure to isolate Russia, and Exxon Mobil executives insist they obey the sanctions.

“We follow the law,” said Alan Jeffers, an Exxon Mobil spokesman. “If a law says that a U.S. corporation is not allowed to participate in activities in a particular jurisdiction, that’s what we do.”

The sanctions are intended to put economic pressure on Russia for its lethal intervention in eastern Ukraine, with the aim of forcing the Russian leadership to change course.

Still, Mr. Tillerson has made his criticism of the American policy clear.

At Exxon’s 2014 annual meeting, Mr. Tillerson said: “We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don’t find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensibly, and that’s a very hard thing to do. So we always encourage the people who are making those decisions to consider the very broad collateral damage of who are they really harming.”

Then, during a question-and-answer period at a Houston conference in early 2015, Mr. Tillerson noted his company looked forward to the sanctions’ being lifted.

“We’ll await a time in which the sanctions environment changes or the sanctions requirements change,” he said of blocked Exxon Mobil projects.

Mr. Tillerson’s approach in Russia tracks what Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer for the Russian tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who had been jailed, described as “the geopolitics of signaling” to the Kremlin, a skill of survival and success for Western oil executives in Russia.

“Exxon has been willing to engage in practices that make it a first-round contender for new Russian assets,” Mr. Amsterdam said. “The way you do that is coming as close to the line as humanely possible to support the Russians” without breaking the law.

Western sanctions were first enacted on Russia in March 2014 in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Then the United States and its allies, including the Netherlands, implicated Russia in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine that July. All on board were killed, including 193 Dutch people heading to Asia for vacations and work, flying for a just few moments over a war zone.

That prompted tighter sanctions. A month later, Russian tanks entered eastern Ukraine, turning the tide against the forces of the American-backed Ukrainian central government. Today, about 300 American soldiers rotate through Ukraine as trainers.

After the Russian incursion in 2014, the United States prohibited the transfer of advanced offshore and shale oil technology to Russia. The American government announced on Sept. 12 that year that Exxon was to halt all offshore drilling assistance to Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, by Sept. 26.

But Exxon Mobil’s high-tech rig was already drilling in the Kara Sea, in an unfinished $700 million project that had yet to find oil. It would be worthless if not completed.

Russian executives then told Exxon Mobil that Russia’s security services would fly in a Russian crew — in essence seize the rig — if Exxon Mobil complied with the American law and left without completing the well, according to an oil company executive who had visited the rig in the Arctic.

Exxon relayed the threat to the American government, and the Treasury Department capitulated, granting an extension that stretched the window to work until Oct. 10. In a statement in 2014, the Russian state oil company denied conveying such a threat to Mr. Tillerson’s company.

With the extension in hand, Exxon Mobil discovered a major field with about 750 million barrels of new oil for Russia a few weeks later. Igor I. Sechin, the chief executive of the Russian state oil company, called the newly discovered oil field Pobeda — Russian for victory.

It is one of the Arctic developments that Exxon Mobil has rights to work on should the sanctions be lifted.

*****************



(comment:)


Not my words but, the oil goes deeper. Here are more facts for those who have yet to see this, with sources to support our concerns. Please share away. The Dakota Access Pipeline, Keystone XL, the selling of national parks, Russia hacking our elections and Trump's cabinet is part of a larger grand plan. Let's put this all together, shall we?

1)Exxon has a $500 Billion dollar deal with Russia currently shelved due to US sanctions from Russia invading the Ukraine. Rex Tillerson, former Exxon CEO has been named Trump's Secretary of State. A position that gives him & Trump the power to remove the sanction and move the project with Putin (whom Rex has had a relationship with for years) forward. https://www.nytimes.com/.../rex-tillersons-company-exxon...

2)Then we have Rick Perry as Trump’s Energy Secretary. Perry is on the Board of Directors of Energy Transfer Partners that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline that protesters are fighting hard to stop building through Native American reservation land. Why would Trump appoint him to this position? Answer: Rick Perry now has full government power to build his pipeline anyway he wants that suits his $3.75 billion credit line to Energy Transfer Partners investment. Energy Transfer Partners recently said in their financial forecast that they’re perfectly positioned to take advantage of “new laws allowing shipping export of oil from the US”. Recently, Trump immediately pushes the pipeline forward (however the Swedish bank backing the project has promised to divest immediately if this goes forward, but many other banks still back it). Trump himself owned stock in the pipeline until very recently. Supposedly he has now divested, or turned the stock over to a family trust.
http://www.cnbc.com/.../trump-energy-dept-pick-rick-perry...

3) Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell is accused of attempting to keep Russian interference in the election quiet. Why? Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell is married to Trump's Dept. of Transportation, Secretary Elaine Chao whose family is worth billions in the shipping industry. Why would she want to be part of this? Answer: She would oversee the regulation of the United States' maritime resources, and possibly be able to bend federal regulations to accommodate her family's business. This gives her power to ship the massive amounts of oil from the Dakota Access Pipeline and from ExxonMobile from all the new drilling sites Trump, Rex, and Russia approves. http://fortune.com/2016/11/29/donald-trump-elaine-chao/

4) Why would Trump appoint Oklahoma Attorney General, Scott Pruitt to be the Head of the EPA(Environmental Protection Agency)? Answer: Scott Pruitt’s current court case against the EPA over what he considers to be overly strict pollution standards would be invalid once he gets the power to change those standards and loosen them so that Rex Tillerson of Exxon can drill all over the world for Russia, Rick Perry of Energy Transfer Partners can pipe oil through Native American lands through the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Republican Senate Majority Leader McConnell and his wife, Dept. of Transportation, Secretary Elaine Chao’s family can ship it all
over the world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../trump-names-scott.../

5) On the 1st week of January, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives out voted the Democrats and passed a bill to devalued public lands & buildings (parks & wilderness) to be worth $0 so that they can sell it, which benefit$ oil & mining companies. Yosemite National Park & federal buildings like FBI J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building could ALLb be given away at tax payers expense. That bill has been repeal, but new similar ones are re-introduced.
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/.../republicans...

6) Then within minutes of the inaugeration, the White House puts up its "Energy First" statement under the "issues" section with his administration's plans to MINE and DRILL our PARKS and does not allow any area on the website where the people can send feedback about our disapproval. This is the statement, "We must TAKE ADVANTAGE OF the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on FEDERAL LANDS that the AMERICAN PEOPLE OWN." The whole point of congress passing a bill to devalue public lands to $0 is to make it an instant profit for the oil and mining companies to start working on breaking up our national parks as quickly as possible without any red tape that was once there before when they had to estimate the value of the land to the budget committee. Many of Trump's cabinet members are already billionaires and they have interest in politics to further their investments in these oil and mining companies.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-energy

Plus, the "energy first" initiative in the White House website says the administration wants to start a COAL INDUSTRY AS a solution to CLEAN ENERGY. REALLY? After sending 13 million green energy jobs to China instead of keeping it in the US where it could easily go to the jobless Midwest that has the land and labor to house solar panels and instead intends to resell that clean energy back to Americans. As other countries grow wealthy with green energy such as solar power, he proposes "coal".
http://usuncut.com/.../trump-cede-13-million-jobs-china.../

The Trump administration has set-up the perfect scenario for depleting the Earth of archaic resources for oil that we no longer need. Instead, we should be utilizing advancements of green energy solutions like the rest of the world. This situation also sets up the potential for devastating Artic drilling in the very near future, which fortunately, the Obama administration put a new ban on all future Artic drilling before he left office. Yet, since Trump reversed Obama's executive order to stop the pipeline project, then he may also reverse the ban on artic drilling so that Rex can get back to his projects there. With climate change being a real thing, the pollution would swim all over.

While Trump plays his magic show of bringing out the hate and bigotry amongst Americans to fight amongst each other like an episode of “American Apprentice”, his true intentions are to get his treasonous friends to drill the Earth of its oil with no environmental standards. This will make him and his friends trillions. What will we have left when the anger from the Trump voters and everyone else subside, a devastated Earth, all because some American citizens got caught up with Trump’s magic antics of a wall around Mexico that he says Mexico will pay for, a Muslim registry for internment camps, overturning abortion rights that can bring back coat hanger, back-alley abortions, normaling Nazis (alt-right, white nationalists) and all the surface level conservative arguments over the decades. Look over here, fight, fight, but DON’T EVER LOOK OVER HERE where the real devastation will happen behind your backs. If you’re reading this and understand that this will affect everyone all over the world, then hold Trump and his cabinet accountable. If you don’t believe this and think its fake news, then do yourself a favor and prove you’re right by clicking on the research links to find out the truth. It's a very clear trail to government misuse and we all need to work together to prevent this from happening.

*************

PkrBum wrote:Here's another one: "I shared nothing with nobody" ... or something like that. I guess that settles it.

Right? Lol... y'all are so easy.

Direct Quote......Susan Rice: "I leaked nothing to nobody,
and never have and never would."

Before this is all over Flynn is going to make a deal to save himself. As I said before and I'll say it again there is no way Flynn called the Russian Am. and discussed the sanctions w/o Trump's knowledge and consent. Obama knew they had made a deal and he made sure before he left office he put those sanctions in because it would make it so much harder for Trump to undo them w/o suspicion. It messed up Trump and the Russians. Trump's having a hard time fulfilling his part of the deal and he hates Obama for it.

Joanimaroni wrote:

PkrBum wrote:Here's another one: "I shared nothing with nobody" ... or something like that. I guess that settles it.

Right? Lol... y'all are so easy.

Direct Quote......Susan Rice: "I leaked nothing to nobody,
and never have and never would."

Sooo... she leaked something to somebody? Lol... and this suit passes for the gospel to leftists.

Vikingwoman wrote:Before this is all over Flynn is going to make a deal to save himself. As I said before and I'll say it again there is no way Flynn called the Russian Am. and discussed the sanctions w/o Trump's knowledge and consent. Obama knew they had made a deal and he made sure before he left office he put those sanctions in because it would make it so much harder for Trump to undo them w/o suspicion. It messed up Trump and the Russians. Trump's having a hard time fulfilling his part of the deal and he hates Obama for it.

But... no concern that rice broke the law and created this entire narrative? Or that Obama knew?

PkrBum wrote:

Vikingwoman wrote:Before this is all over Flynn is going to make a deal to save himself. As I said before and I'll say it again there is no way Flynn called the Russian Am. and discussed the sanctions w/o Trump's knowledge and consent. Obama knew they had made a deal and he made sure before he left office he put those sanctions in because it would make it so much harder for Trump to undo them w/o suspicion. It messed up Trump and the Russians. Trump's having a hard time fulfilling his part of the deal and he hates Obama for it.

But... no concern that rice broke the law and created this entire narrative? Or that Obama knew?

I like to have a good argument about politics as much as the next person but your denseness regarding this particular situation is discouraging. No laws were broken. Rice was performing her job. Permission to see masked names of U.S. citizens is given by the security agency. Rice had to be given permission. Unmasking is not a crime. This whole scenario started by 45 is a blatant ploy to distract.

Now that Nunes has stepped aside from this investigation maybe things will go more smoothly.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/devin-nunes-stepping-aside-russia-intelligence-committee/index.html

Unmasking is not leaking

When the name of a U.S. person is unmasked, that information is provided only to the intelligence official who requested that unmasking, Rice said Tuesday. "There's no equivalence between so-called unmasking and leaking," she said.

Of course, the recipient of unmasked information could then illegally disclose it through a leak.

Rice denied leaking. "I leaked nothing to nobody, and never had and never would," she said.

Unmasking is not a crime

The process for unmasking vary from agency to agency and case by case depending on how the information was collected. But the exact procedures are not publicly known and may be classified.

“None of this unmasking procedure is in law. It's in procedure. Executive branch procedure," said Carrie Cordero, a national security lawyer who worked on surveillance issues in the Justice Department in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

“What I think I’m seeing as the biggest fallacy being reported, or being 'pundited,' is that if there was some kind of improper unmasking, that it's illegal. And that’s wrong,” she said.

If it turns out that procedures weren't followed, they would most likely be subject to administrative discipline, Cordero said.



https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/04/what-unmasking-how-intelligence-agencies-treat-us-citizens/100026368/

Trump, Citing No Evidence, Suggests Susan Rice Committed Crime

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/politics/trump-interview-susan-rice.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — "President Trump said on Wednesday that Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser, may have committed a crime by seeking to learn the identities of Trump associates swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by United States spy agencies, repeating an assertion his allies in the news media have been making since last week.

Mr. Trump gave no evidence to support his claim, and current and former intelligence officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations have said they do not believe Ms. Rice’s actions were unusual or unlawful. The president repeatedly rebuffed attempts by two New York Times reporters to learn more about what led him to the conclusion, saying he would talk more about it “at the right time.”

The allegation by a sitting president was a remarkable escalation — and, his critics say, the latest effort to change the story at a time when his nascent administration has been consumed by questions about any role his associates may have played in a Russian campaign to disrupt last year’s presidential election.

Since March 4, when Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that President Barack Obama had “wiretapped” him at Trump Tower during the campaign, the president and his allies have repeatedly sought evidence trying to corroborate that claim, despite flat denials from James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I., and other senior intelligence officials.

Wednesday’s interview revealed how Mr. Trump seizes on claims made by the conservative news media, from fringe outlets to Fox News, and gives them a presidential stamp of approval and also increases their reach.

Last week, some Republican television commentators asserted that Ms. Rice had improperly leaked the names of Trump associates picked up in surveillance of foreign officials. On Sunday, a conservative writer and conspiracy theorist reported, without identifying his sources, that Ms. Rice had been the one to seek identities of the Trump associates.

Other conservative outlets picked up the report, and the Drudge Report website, which has been supportive of Mr. Trump, featured the story prominently. White House officials then accused mainstream news outlets of not giving the story proper coverage.

The interview with The Times was supposed to be focused on Mr. Trump’s plans for large-scale spending on the nation’s infrastructure. But moments after it began, the president began talking about Ms. Rice.

“I think the Susan Rice thing is a massive story. I think it’s a massive, massive story. All over the world,” Mr. Trump said.

“It’s a bigger story than you know,” the president added cryptically, also saying that new information would emerge “in terms of what other people have done also.”

“The Russia story is a total hoax. There has been absolutely nothing coming out of that,” he said.

Turning the subject to Ms. Rice, the president said: “What’s happened is terrible. I’ve never seen people so indignant, including many Democrats who are friends of mine.”

Through a spokeswoman, Ms. Rice said, “I’m not going to dignify the president’s ludicrous charge with a comment.” In an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, Ms. Rice said she had done nothing wrong.

“The allegation is that somehow the Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes,” Ms. Rice said. “That’s absolutely false.”..."