At Trump's press conference Jan. 11, he did not answer to the American people the pointed question of whether Trump himself or his surrogates had direct contact with Russian officials (reporting to Putin) during the course of his campaign. As he dodged this question, he disparaged the role of the news media (CNN, Buzzfeed and others) to go public with information possessed by the FBI and which is also being examined on Capitol Hill by the Gang of Eight Congressional leaders. He also deflected by trashing the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community for "leaking" briefing documents.