While speaking with House investigators today, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats explained that President Donald Trump appeared to be obsessed with the Russia investigation. He also revealed that the president had asked him numerous times to publicly comment on the probe and say that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump associates, according to NBC News.

This report comes in the wake of other reports that both Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers told investigators for the Senate and Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president wanted both of them to go out and tell the public that there wasn’t any collusion.

Both men were more forthcoming in closed settings than this month’s open hearing before the Senate, when they refused to answer questions about their conversations with the president regarding the Russia probe.

Coats and Rogers confirming that Trump attempted to get them to knock down stories about collusion track with what the Washington Post reported last month. That story claimed that the two men had told associates that the president wanted them to push back against the FBI probe.

[image via screengrab]

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