FBI police car (illustration)
FBI police car (illustration)iStock

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, officials told CNN on Wednesday night.

One source told the network that this is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he announced earlier this week that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

The FBI is reportedly now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings, the officials told CNN. The information is raising the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence investigators that the coordination may have taken place, though officials cautioned that the information was not conclusive and that the investigation is ongoing.

In his statement on Monday, Comey said the FBI began looking into possible coordination between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives because the bureau had gathered "a credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power."

The White House did not comment, while the FBI declined to comment.

One law enforcement official said the information in hand suggests "people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready."

However, other U.S. officials who spoke to CNN said it was premature to draw that inference from the information gathered so far since it's largely circumstantial.

The investigation traces back to last July, when Russian intelligence agencies began orchestrating the release of hacked emails stolen in a breach of the Democratic National Committee and associated organizations, as well as email accounts belonging to Clinton campaign officials.

Trump initially rejected the CIA’s assessment that the hacking was carried out by Russia in order to sabotage Hillary Clinton's candidacy, insisting that Democrats bitter with the results of the election were inventing excuses for their defeat.

He later, however, accepted the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia engaged in cyber attacks during the election.