Trump's ire over the insider tips to journalists also contrasted with his indirect praise of the disclosure of leaked internal emails from the Clinton campaign made public by WikiLeaks during the lead-up to the election.
"This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign," Trump tweeted Wednesday.
The president was referring to recent stories by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Both outlined questionable - and potentially illegal - contact between his aides and Russia.
An article posted by The New York Times late Tuesday reported that members of his presidential campaign team, as well as other Trump associates, were repeatedly in contact with senior Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. And several articles by The Washington Post reported that Flynn had misled administration officials, including Pence, about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States over sanctions before Trump was sworn in.
Wednesday was not the first time he had blamed the media and the intelligence community for an unflattering portrait. Shortly before his inauguration last month, amid reports by CNN that Russia may have compiled a dossier of compromising material on him, Trump criticised leaks from the intelligence community, asking on Twitter, "Are we living in Nazi Germany?"
Trump defended Flynn during today's press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, saying his former adviser is a "wonderful man".
- with Washington Post
