by Itunuoluwa Adebo

According to Reuters, Michael Flynn and advisers to President Trump’s campaign made contact with Russian officials and others ties in at least 18 calls and emails in the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race.

The FBI and congress investigators probing the Russian interference with the U.S presidential election, and Trump’s collusion with the Russians,are currently looking through the previously undisclosed interactions. Six of these contacts were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US, and Pres. Trump’s advisers, former national security adviser.

The conversations between Flynn and Kislyak got more intense after the Nov. 8 vote, the two discussed establishing a back channel for easy communication between Trump and Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security which was considered hostile to improved relations by both parties.

The White House initially denied all contacts with Russian officials in January during the 2016 campaign but have since confirmed four meetings between Kislyak and Trump advisers during the period. This disclosure could drive up the pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full account of interactions with Russian officials during and immediately after the 2016 election.

All major key players in the probe declined to comment. “We do not comment on our daily contacts with the local interlocutors.” a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington said.

In the calls which happened between April and November 2016, hackers engaged in what US intelligence concludes was a Kremlin campaign to discredit and influence the outcome of the election to favor President Trump. Sources said the calls were focused on repairing the economic relations between both countries already strained by sanctions imposed on Moscow, cooperating in fighting the Islamic State in Syria and containing a more assertive China.