Washington (CNN)British and other European intelligence agencies intercepted communications
between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and other Russian individuals
during the campaign and passed on those communications to their US counterparts, US congressional and law enforcement and US and European intelligence sources tell CNN.
The communications were captured
during routine surveillance of Russian officials and other Russians known to western intelligence. British and European intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, the British intelligence agency responsible for communications surveillance,
were not proactively targeting members of the Trump team but rather picked up these communications during what's known as "incidental collection," these sources tell CNN.
[Spicer's] comments angered British officials. After Spicer's remarks, White House officials told CNN British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch and Sir Mark Lyall Grant, national security adviser to Prime Minister Theresa May, "expressed their concerns to Spicer and Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster" in two separate conversations.
The GCHQ also issued a statement saying: "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wire tapping' against the then President-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored."
Last month, Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, said that "based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016."