New Trump-Russia links spark row

Donald Trump's communications may have been swept up in intelligence gathering on suspected foreign agents, according to explosive allegations made Wednesday by the Republican head of the House intelligence committee.

Devin Nunes -- who worked on Trump's transition team and is now leading an investigation into possible links between that campaign team and Russia -- said Trump's communications may have been intercepted late last year.

Nunes however said there was no evidence that then-president Barack Obama ordered the surveillance -- as Trump has claimed -- or that the Republican billionaire was the target.

Rather, Nunes suggested, Trump's communications were picked up during court-approved targeting of suspected foreign intelligence operatives.

The communications were not linked to Russia, he said, adding that they appeared to have "little or no intelligence value."

The information collected -- spanning the November-January period between Trump's election victory and his inauguration -- was "widely disseminated" in US intelligence circles, he said.

US intelligence community rules dictate that information on Americans picked up incidentally in surveillance must be scrubbed or masked in intelligence reports.

Nunes suggested those involved in the surveillance had violated those rules.

Meanwhile CNN on Wednesday reported that the FBI has reportedly obtained information suggesting that aides of Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to coordinate the release of information to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.

US officials told CNN that the agency is currently reviewing human intelligence, travel, business and phone records, and several accounts of in-person meetings. However, the officials did caution that the information was not conclusive.

The bombshell report comes several days after FBI Director James Comey announced that his agency had begun looking into the Trump campaign's activities because his agents had gathered a "credible allegation of wrongdoing" or "reasonable basis to believe an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power."