From the February 24 edition of CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper:
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JAKE TAPPER (HOST): The White House is pushing back strongly today against the CNN exclusive CNN reporters found that the FBI rejected a request made by the White House to try to publicly knock down reporting by both CNN and The New York Times about contacts between President Trump's campaign staff and Russians known to US Intelligence. CNN's Jim Sciutto joins me now. And Jim, the White House 's push back is interesting because it actually ends up confirming the reporting.
JIM SCIUTTO: Between all the push back and the normal insults and the obfuscation this essential fact, the White House confirms it did speak to the FBI about these communications and did ask for help knocking down stories describing those communications. And more broadly, the White House has not denied the existence of these communications between Trump advisers and Russians known to U.S. Intelligence during the campaign as CNN reported last week.
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We learned today at Friday's briefing the members of the intelligence committees both the Senate and House congressional sources say FBI director James Comey did not dismiss the existence of any communications between Russians and Trump advisers. Fact is, the FBI is still investigating the significance of these contacts as are the House and Senate intelligence committees. When Reince Priebus makes the broader denial there is nothing to these reports whatsoever of communications, that contradicts the fact that there are, in fact, ongoing investigations, FBI and two on the Hill as well.
