Top Trump aide's email draws new scrutiny in Russia inquiry

The aide, Rick Dearborn, who is now President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff, sent a brief email to campaign officials last year relaying information about an individual who was seeking to connect top Trump officials with Putin, the sources said.

The person was only identified in the email as being from "WV," which one source said was a reference to West Virginia. It's unclear who the individual is, what he or she was seeking, or whether Dearborn even acted on the request. One source said that the individual was believed to have had political connections in West Virginia, but details about the request and who initiated it remain vague. The same source said Dearborn in the email appeared skeptical of the requested meeting. Sources said the email occurred in June 2016 around the time of the recently revealed Trump Tower meeting where Russians with Kremlin ties met with the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

While many details around the Dearborn email are unclear, its existence suggests the Russians may have been looking for another entry point into the Trump campaign to see if there were any willing partners as part of their effort to discredit — and ultimately defeat — Hillary Clinton.

Dearborn's name has not been mentioned much as part of the Russia probe. But he served as then-Sen. Jeff Sessions' chief of staff, as well as a top policy aide on the campaign. And investigators have questions about whether he played a role in potentially arranging two meetings that occurred between the then-Russia ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, and Sessions, who has downplayed the significance of those encounters.

Dearborn was involved in helping to arrange an April 2016 event at the Mayflower Hotel where Trump delivered a major foreign policy address, sources said. Kislyak attended the event and a reception beforehand, but it's unclear whether he interacted with Sessions there. Dearborn did not respond to multiple inquiries seeking comment.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment, and would not respond to inquiries about Dearborn's email and whether the campaign carried through with that meeting. "We aren't going to comment on potentially leaked documents," Sanders said. Intelligence experts say the request made by the unidentified West Virginian fits a pattern of Russians trying to gather human intelligence and seek unwilling — and sometimes unwitting partners— as part of their covert operations.

"The Russians are really experts at this," said Steve Hall, a retired CIA chief of Russia operations. But Hall added that it would be unusual to set up a meeting with Putin himself before meeting with operatives tied to the Kremlin.The Russian "active measures" campaign to influence the US election was fully underway when Dearborn sent his email.