The New York Times reports that the CIA and FBI began examining suspected ties between Russian hacking efforts and the Trump campaign significantly earlier in the campaign than was previously known—and that the CIA, in particular, considered the situation “urgent”.
The former officials said that in late August — 10 weeks before the election — John O. Brennan, then the C.I.A. director, was so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that he began a series of urgent, individual briefings for eight top members of Congress, some of them on secure phone lines while they were on their summer break. [...]
The officials said Mr. Brennan also indicated that unnamed advisers to Mr. Trump might be working with the Russians to interfere in the election.
That was in August. But just how long before that did the intelligence community open their investigation into possible Republican campaign collusion with the Russian hacking efforts?
Unknown to Mr. Reid, the F.B.I. had already opened a counterintelligence inquiry a month before, in late July, to examine possible links between Russia and people tied to the Trump campaign. But its existence was kept secret even from members of Congress.
July. By that July, there was already a counterintelligence operation to determine whether members of the Trump campaign were colluding with foreign espionage efforts to undermine a political opponent. It wasn't until August that the CIA began calling top lawmakers to brief them on what they were finding, and it wasn't until after the election that the public was given a declassified version of the intelligence community's assessment that the Russian interference was indeed orchestrated to help Trump.
