Intelligence agencies in Great Britain and other European countries intercepted communications between Trump staffers and Russian officials during the 2o16 campaign, and shared that information with the United States, according to reports in The Guardian and CNN.
The Guardian first reported the revelation on Thursday, and CNN later confirmed that the foreign agencies caught those communications.
GCHQ first noticed “interactions” in late 2015 and over the next six months several intelligence agencies in the West caught communications between Trump staffers and Russian officials, according to The Guardian. The countries that shared information with the U.S. in addition to the U.K. included Germany, Poland, Estonia and Australia, per The Guardian.
The Guardian reported that “GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation.”
The British and European agencies were not conducting surveillance of aides to President Donald Trump, but were conducting surveillance of Russian officials, according to CNN.
The revelation follows a claim by Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano that the U.S. asked Great Britain to spy on Trump. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer then cited Napolitano to back up Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped. GCHQ denied Napolitano’s claim, calling it “utterly ridiculous,” and the White House later apologized for parroting it.
However, the reports in The Guardian and CNN did not suggest that the U.S. asked other intelligence agencies to surveil Trump staffers. Both outlets reported that the foreign intelligence agencies picked up the communications while surveilling Russian officials.
