Trump's campaign did have contact with Russian intelligence: NYT

According to The New York Times, Donald Trump's campaign aides did contact Russian intelligence the year before the election, just when Trump was speaking highly of Vladimir Putin, and there are recorded phone conversations to prove it. The NYT article says:

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

Trump has denied having colluded with Russia. But the revelation by US intelligence officials now debunk that claim.