--- title: Donald Trump: Reince Priebus Denies Russia Campaign Ties description: Reince Priebus denied any involvement between Russian intelligence officials and President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign canonical: https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-19T19:21:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T03:25:12.559Z article:section: Politics og:title: Priebus Denies That Trump Campaign Team Had Russia Contacts og:description: The White House chief of staff says reports are "grossly overstated" og:url: https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt745095aa5f3d1d66/6988bb058fd2ee138f355daa/reine-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: President Trump Holds Meeting Honoring Black History Month og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Priebus Denies That Trump Campaign Team Had Russia Contacts twitter:description: The White House chief of staff says reports are "grossly overstated" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt745095aa5f3d1d66/6988bb058fd2ee138f355daa/reine-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Reince Priebus Denies 'Inaccurate' Report That Trump Campaign Team Had Contact With Russia by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Feb 19, 2017 7:21 PM UTC  White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus attends an African American History Month listening session held by President Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 1, 2017. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus attends an African American History Month listening session held by President Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 1, 2017.Pool—Getty Images by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Feb 19, 2017 7:21 PM UTC White House chief of staff Reince Priebus [denied any involvement](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/reince-priebus-denies-fbi-spoke-anyone-else-white-house-n722956) between Russian intelligence officials and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in new interviews on Sunday. The New York _Times_, citing anonymous sources, [reported last week](http://time.com/4671457/trump-russia-intelligence-manafort-campaign/) that members of Trump’s campaign and others associated with the president had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies based their findings on intercepted communications, the _Times_ reported. The agencies did not find any evidence that the campaign was working with Russia to influence the election’s outcome, according to the _Times_. During an appearance on [NBC’s _Meet the Press_](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/reince-priebus-denies-fbi-spoke-anyone-else-white-house-n722956), Priebus called the report “grossly overstated and inaccurate.” “I mean, we’ve spent days talking about a story that says that our campaign had constant contacts with Russian spies. And I can tell you, I’ve talked to the top levels of the intelligence community, and they’ve assured me that that New York _Times_ story was grossly overstated and inaccurate and totally wrong,” Priebus told host Chuck Todd. He continued: “It is this sort of fake news stuff that is enormously important that, when you get a front page story of New York _Times_ without a single source on the record saying that your campaign had constant contact ― they didn’t say one contact. They didn’t say two contacts. It doesn’t matter. We have not been informed of even that.” The chief of staff made similar comments on _Fox News Sunday_, citing the “top-level” intelligence officials who told him there were no contacts between Russia and the campaign. “When I say top-level people, I mean top-level people,” Priebus said, though he did not give their names. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/"},"headline":"Reince Priebus Denies 'Inaccurate' Report That Trump Campaign Team Had Contact With Russia","datePublished":"2017-02-19T19:21:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T03:25:12.559Z","description":"The White House chief of staff says reports are \"grossly overstated and inaccurate\"","url":"https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt745095aa5f3d1d66/6988bb058fd2ee138f355daa/reine-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt745095aa5f3d1d66/6988bb058fd2ee138f355daa/reine-priebus.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Holds Meeting Honoring Black History Month","caption":"President Trump Holds Meeting Honoring Black History Month","creditText":"Pool—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4676109/reince-priebus-donald-trump-russia-campaign/","name":"Reince Priebus Denies 'Inaccurate' Report That Trump Campaign Team Had Contact With Russia"}}]}] ```