The WEB GIST

Opposition Democrats on Saturday chose Tom Perez as their new leader, tapping an establishment figure to lead the fight against President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress.

Perez, a labor secretary under former president Barack Obama and the party's first Hispanic-American leader, immediately named the contest's runner-up, leftist lawmaker Keith Ellison, as the party's deputy chairman.

"Someday, they're going to study this era in American history... and ask the question, of all of us, where were you in 2017 when we had the worst president in the history of the United States?" said Perez, 55.

"And we will all be able to say, the united Democratic party led the resistance, ensured this president was a one-term president and elected Democrats across this country."

Ellison, an 53-year-old African American who is the first Muslim elected to the US Congress, warned that "we don't have the luxury to walk out of this room divided."

The fight over who would chair the Democratic National Committee (DNC) appeared at times to be a proxy battle between the supporters of defeated 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her leftist primary rival Bernie Sanders.

Perez, who won 235 votes against 200 for Ellison - a strong Sanders supporter - was seen as the establishment pick.

A third candidate, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- a gay, 35-year-old Rhodes Scholar and military veteran -- dropped out of the race before the vote, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia.

Unlike in other democracies the leaders of the two main US parties wield little influence on policy, with leading party lawmakers holding far more clout.

But this backstage role is taking on greater significance following Clinton's surprise 2016 defeat, and as Democrats prepare for next year's midterm elections and the 2020 presidential vote.

Perez succeeds interim chair Donna Brazile, who took over after Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ousted in mid-2016 when leaked emails showed that some DNC members, who are pledged to be neutral in presidential primaries, favored Clinton over Sanders.

The progressive group Democracy for America was upset with the "incredibly disappointing" vote result.

Choosing Perez "is another missed opportunity for a Democratic Party desperately trying to regain relevance, and proves... how out of touch party insiders are with the grassroots movement currently in the streets," said the group's chair Jim Dean, an Ellison supporter.

But Obama, who has largely been silent since leaving office in January, called for mending rifts.

"What unites our party is a belief in opportunity -- the idea that however you started out, whatever you look like, or whomever you love, America is the place where you can make it if you try," he said.

"I know that Tom Perez will unite us under that banner of opportunity, and lay the groundwork for a new generation of Democratic leadership for this big, bold, inclusive, dynamic America we love so much."

After the vote Trump offered what appeared to be tongue-in-cheek congratulations on Twitter.

"Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!" he wrote.

Perez's response: "Call me Tom. And don't get too happy. @keithellison and I, and Democrats united across the country, will be your worst nightmare."

According to Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, by choosing Perez Democrats "only create deeper divisions within their own party by pushing a far left agenda that rejects a majority of their base outside Washington."

During a televised DNC candidate debate late Wednesday, Perez said Democrats need to "get back to basics" by making house calls in all 50 states and reminding workers that the party represents their values and interests.

"When we lead with our message, our message of economic opportunity, that's how we win," he said.

Perez also warned that Democrats must reform their party's presidential primary system, which he said has created "a crisis of confidence" because of its lack of transparency.

The wealthiest people in the world got a little less rich over the last year. Some blame dropping oil prices, a few got caught up in corruption scandals and most fortunes were squeezed by falling currencies and a sluggish global economy.

Still, 1,810 billionaires made this year’s World’s Billionaires List, with a total net worth of $6.48 trillion, down from $7.05 trillion last year. Altogether, 221 former billionaires dropped out of the rankings, while 198 newcomers joined for the first time.

Meanwhile, the richest 500 individuals tell their own story. They are worth a collective $4.16 trillion, of the $6.48 trillion total. In other words, 28% of the richest people in the world are responsible for 64% of all billionaires’ wealth. Of these, 183 are U.S. citizens; 149 are European; 119 are from the Asia-Pacific region; 32 are from the Americas (excluding the United States); and 17 are from Middle East and Africa.

Beyond the numbers, their businesses touch every industry in each corner of the globe, weaving their brands across the fabric of society.

What follows below is a simple list of those 500.

1. Bill Gates

Net Worth: $75 B

Source of wealth: Microsoft

2. Amancio Ortega

Net Worth: $67 B

Source of wealth: Zara

3. Warren Buffett

Net Worth: $60.8 B

Source of wealth: Berkshire Hathaway

4. Carlos Slim Helu

Net Worth: $50 B

Source of wealth: telecom

5. Jeff Bezos

Net Worth: $45.2 B

Source of wealth: Amazon.com

6. Mark Zuckerberg

Net Worth: $44.6 B

Source of wealth: Facebook

7. Larry Ellison

Net Worth: $43.6 B

Source of wealth: Oracle

8. Michael Bloomberg

Net Worth: $40 B

Source of wealth: Bloomberg LP

9. Charles Koch

Net Worth: $39.6 B

Source of wealth: diversified

10. David Koch

Net Worth: $39.6 B

Source of wealth: diversified

11. Liliane Bettencourt

Net Worth: $36.1 B

Source of wealth: L'Oreal

12. Larry Page

Net Worth: $35.2 B

Source of wealth: Google

13. Sergey Brin

Net Worth: $34.4 B

Source of wealth: Google

14. Bernard Arnault

Net Worth: $34 B

Source of wealth: LVMH

15. Jim Walton

Net Worth: $33.6 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

16. Alice Walton

Net Worth: $32.3 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

17. S. Robson Walton

Net Worth: $31.9 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

18. Jianlin Wang

Net Worth: $28.7 B

Source of wealth: real estate

19. Jorge Paulo Lemann

Net Worth: $27.8 B

Source of wealth: beer

20. Ka-shing Li

Net Worth: $27.1 B

Source of wealth: diversified

21. Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr.

Net Worth: $25.9 B

Source of wealth: supermarkets

22. Sheldon Adelson

Net Worth: $25.2 B

Source of wealth: casinos

23. George Soros

Net Worth: $24.9 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

24. Phil Knight

Net Worth: $24.4 B

Source of wealth: Nike

25. David Thomson

Net Worth: $23.8 B

Source of wealth: media

26. Steve Ballmer

Net Worth: $23.5 B

Source of wealth: Microsoft

27. Forrest Mars

Net Worth: $23.4 B

Source of wealth: candy

28. Jacqueline Mars

Net Worth: $23.4 B

Source of wealth: candy

29. John Mars

Net Worth: $23.4 B

Source of wealth: candy

30. Maria Franca Fissolo

Net Worth: $22.1 B

Source of wealth: Nutella, Chocolates

31. Shau Kee Lee

Net Worth: $21.5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

32. Stefan Persson

Net Worth: $20.8 B

Source of wealth: H&M

33. Jack Ma

Net Worth: $20.5 B

Source of wealth: Alibaba

34. Theo Albrecht

Net Worth: $20.3 B

Source of wealth: Aldi, Trader Joe's

35. Michael Dell

Net Worth: $19.8 B

Source of wealth: Dell

36. Mukesh Ambani

Net Worth: $19.3 B

Source of wealth: petrochemicals, oil & gas

37. Leonardo Del Vecchio

Net Worth: $18.7 B

Source of wealth: eyeglasses

38. Susanne Klatten

Net Worth: $18.5 B

Source of wealth: BMW, pharmaceuticals

39. Georg Schaeffler

Net Worth: $18.1 B

Source of wealth: ball bearings

40. Paul Allen

Net Worth: $17.5 B

Source of wealth: Microsoft, investments

41. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud

Net Worth: $17.3 B

Source of wealth: investments

42. Joseph Safra

Net Worth: $17.2 B

Source of wealth: banking

43. Carl Icahn

Net Worth: $17 B

Source of wealth: investments

44. Laurene Powell Jobs

Net Worth: $16.7 B

Source of wealth: Apple, Disney

45. Dilip Shanghvi

Net Worth: $16.7 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

46. Huateng Ma

Net Worth: $16.6 B

Source of wealth: internet portal

47. Dieter Schwarz

Net Worth: $16.4 B

Source of wealth: retail

48. Ray Dalio

Net Worth: $15.6 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

49. Stefan Quandt

Net Worth: $15.6 B

Source of wealth: BMW

50. James Simons

Net Worth: $15.5 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

51. Aliko Dangote

Net Worth: $15.4 B

Source of wealth: cement, sugar, flour

52. Michael Otto

Net Worth: $15.4 B

Source of wealth: retail, real estate

53. Len Blavatnik

Net Worth: $15.3 B

Source of wealth: diversified

54. Donald Bren

Net Worth: $15.1 B

Source of wealth: real estate

55. Azim Premji

Net Worth: $15 B

Source of wealth: software services

56. Serge Dassault

Net Worth: $14.7 B

Source of wealth: aviation

57. Tadashi Yanai

Net Worth: $14.6 B

Source of wealth: retail

58. Yu-tung Cheng

Net Worth: $14.5 B

Source of wealth: diversified

59. Hinduja

Net Worth: $14.5 B

Source of wealth: Hinduja Group

60. Leonid Mikhelson

Net Worth: $14.4 B

Source of wealth: gas, chemicals

61. David & Simon Reuben

Net Worth: $14.4 B

Source of wealth: investments, real estate

62. Stefano Pessina

Net Worth: $13.4 B

Source of wealth: drugstores

63. Mikhail Fridman

Net Worth: $13.3 B

Source of wealth: oil, banking, telecom

64. Dietrich Mateschitz

Net Worth: $13.2 B

Source of wealth: Red Bull

65. Abigail Johnson

Net Worth: $13.1 B

Source of wealth: money management

66. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen

Net Worth: $13.1 B

Source of wealth: Lego

67. Joseph Lau

Net Worth: $13.1 B

Source of wealth: real estate

68. Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor

Net Worth: $13 B

Source of wealth: real estate

69. Thomas & Raymond Kwok

Net Worth: $13 B

Source of wealth: real estate

70. Marcel Herrmann Telles

Net Worth: $13 B

Source of wealth: beer

71. Henry Sy

Net Worth: $12.9 B

Source of wealth: SM Investments Corporation

72. Steve Cohen

Net Worth: $12.7 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

73. Pallonji Mistry

Net Worth: $12.5 B

Source of wealth: construction

74. Hans Rausing

Net Worth: $12.5 B

Source of wealth: packaging

75. Alisher Usmanov

Net Worth: $12.5 B

Source of wealth: steel, telecom, investments

76. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken

Net Worth: $12.3 B

Source of wealth: Heineken

77. Charles Ergen

Net Worth: $12.2 B

Source of wealth: satellite TV

78. Ronald Perelman

Net Worth: $12.1 B

Source of wealth: leveraged buyouts

79. Vladimir Potanin

Net Worth: $12.1 B

Source of wealth: metals

80. Stephen Ross

Net Worth: $12 B

Source of wealth: real estate

81. Patrick Soon-Shiong

Net Worth: $11.9 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

82. Masayoshi Son

Net Worth: $11.7 B

Source of wealth: internet, telecom

83. Heinz Hermann Thiele

Net Worth: $11.7 B

Source of wealth: brakes

84. Francois Pinault

Net Worth: $11.5 B

Source of wealth: retail

85. David Tepper

Net Worth: $11.4 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

86. Gennady Timchenko

Net Worth: $11.4 B

Source of wealth: oil & gas

87. Carlos Alberto Sicupira

Net Worth: $11.3 B

Source of wealth: beer

88. Shiv Nadar

Net Worth: $11.1 B

Source of wealth: software services

89. Thomas Peterffy

Net Worth: $11.1 B

Source of wealth: discount brokerage

90. Robin Li

Net Worth: $11 B

Source of wealth: internet search

91. Alain Wertheimer

Net Worth: $11 B

Source of wealth: Chanel

92. Gerard Wertheimer

Net Worth: $11 B

Source of wealth: Chanel

93. Alexey Mordashov

Net Worth: $10.9 B

Source of wealth: steel, investments

94. Elon Musk

Net Worth: $10.7 B

Source of wealth: Tesla Motors

95. Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi

Net Worth: $10.7 B

Source of wealth: beverages

96. Petr Kellner

Net Worth: $10.6 B

Source of wealth: banking, insurance

97. Rupert Murdoch

Net Worth: $10.6 B

Source of wealth: media

98. Viktor Vekselberg

Net Worth: $10.5 B

Source of wealth: metals, energy

99. Lukas Walton

Net Worth: $10.4 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

100. Eric Schmidt

Net Worth: $10.2 B

Source of wealth: Google

101. Iris Fontbona

Net Worth: $10.1 B

Source of wealth: mining

102. Massimiliana Landini Aleotti

Net Worth: $10.1 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

103. Mike Adenuga

Net Worth: $10 B

Source of wealth: telcom, oil

104. Klaus-Michael Kuehne

Net Worth: $10 B

Source of wealth: shipping

105. Robert Kuok

Net Worth: $10 B

Source of wealth: palm oil/shipping/real estate

106. Samuel Newhouse

Net Worth: $10 B

Source of wealth: media

107. Jun Lei

Net Worth: $9.8 B

Source of wealth: smartphones

108. Philip Anschutz

Net Worth: $9.7 B

Source of wealth: investments

109. Jim Kennedy

Net Worth: $9.7 B

Source of wealth: media

110. Blair Parry-Okeden

Net Worth: $9.7 B

Source of wealth: media

111. John Paulson

Net Worth: $9.7 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

112. Kun-Hee Lee

Net Worth: $9.6 B

Source of wealth: Samsung

113. Hasso Plattner

Net Worth: $9.5 B

Source of wealth: software

114. Stephen Schwarzman

Net Worth: $9.5 B

Source of wealth: investments

115. Andrew Beal

Net Worth: $9.4 B

Source of wealth: banks, real estate

116. Vladimir Lisin

Net Worth: $9.3 B

Source of wealth: steel, transport

117. John Menard

Net Worth: $9.3 B

Source of wealth: retail

118. Donald Newhouse

Net Worth: $9.3 B

Source of wealth: media

119. Udo & Harald Tschira

Net Worth: $9.3 B

Source of wealth: Software

120. Galen Weston

Net Worth: $9.3 B

Source of wealth: retail

121. German Larrea Mota Velasco

Net Worth: $9.2 B

Source of wealth: mining

122. Xiangjian He

Net Worth: $9 B

Source of wealth: home appliances

123. Leonard Lauder

Net Worth: $9 B

Source of wealth: Estee Lauder

124. Vagit Alekperov

Net Worth: $8.9 B

Source of wealth: oil

125. Dustin Moskovitz

Net Worth: $8.9 B

Source of wealth: Facebook

126. Luis Carlos Sarmiento

Net Worth: $8.9 B

Source of wealth: banking

127. Gina Rinehart

Net Worth: $8.8 B

Source of wealth: mining

128. German Khan

Net Worth: $8.7 B

Source of wealth: oil, banking, telecom

129. Ernesto Bertarelli

Net Worth: $8.6 B

Source of wealth: biotech, investments

130. Ka Yan Hui

Net Worth: $8.6 B

Source of wealth: real estate

131. Jan Koum

Net Worth: $8.6 B

Source of wealth: WhatsApp

132. Xavier Niel

Net Worth: $8.6 B

Source of wealth: internet, telecom

133. John Fredriksen

Net Worth: $8.5 B

Source of wealth: shipping

134. Cyrus Poonawalla

Net Worth: $8.5 B

Source of wealth: vaccines

135. Gianluigi & Rafaela Aponte

Net Worth: $8.4 B

Source of wealth: shipping

136. Lakshmi Mittal

Net Worth: $8.4 B

Source of wealth: steel

137. Eyal Ofer

Net Worth: $8.4 B

Source of wealth: real estate, shipping

138. Mohammed Al Amoudi

Net Worth: $8.3 B

Source of wealth: oil, diversified

139. Hank & Doug Meijer

Net Worth: $8.2 B

Source of wealth: supermarkets

140. Andrey Melnichenko

Net Worth: $8.2 B

Source of wealth: coal, fertilizers

141. William Ding

Net Worth: $8.1 B

Source of wealth: online games

142. R. Budi Hartono

Net Worth: $8.1 B

Source of wealth: banking, tobacco

143. Reinhold Wuerth

Net Worth: $8.1 B

Source of wealth: fasteners

144. James Goodnight

Net Worth: $8 B

Source of wealth: software

145. Johann Graf

Net Worth: $8 B

Source of wealth: gambling

146. Michael Hartono

Net Worth: $7.9 B

Source of wealth: tobacco, banking

147. Dietmar Hopp

Net Worth: $7.9 B

Source of wealth: software

148. Stanley Kroenke

Net Worth: $7.7 B

Source of wealth: sports, real estate

149. Dmitry Rybolovlev

Net Worth: $7.7 B

Source of wealth: fertilizer

150. Kyung-Bae Suh

Net Worth: $7.7 B

Source of wealth: cosmetics

151. Roman Abramovich

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: steel, investments

152. Emmanuel Besnier

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: cheese

153. Che Woo Lui

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: casinos

154. Robert & Philip Ng

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: real estate

155. Mikhail Prokhorov

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: investments

156. August von Finck

Net Worth: $7.6 B

Source of wealth: investments

157. Ken Griffin

Net Worth: $7.5 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

158. Ananda Krishnan

Net Worth: $7.4 B

Source of wealth: telecom

159. Eli Broad

Net Worth: $7.3 B

Source of wealth: investments

160. Thomas Frist

Net Worth: $7.3 B

Source of wealth: health care

161. Herbert Kohler

Net Worth: $7.3 B

Source of wealth: plumbing fixtures

162. Harry Triguboff

Net Worth: $7.3 B

Source of wealth: property

163. Edward Johnson

Net Worth: $7.2 B

Source of wealth: money management

164. Pierre Omidyar

Net Worth: $7.2 B

Source of wealth: eBay

165. Takemitsu Takizaki

Net Worth: $7.2 B

Source of wealth: sensors

166. Wenyin Wang

Net Worth: $7.2 B

Source of wealth: mining, copper products

167. Micky Arison

Net Worth: $7.1 B

Source of wealth: Carnival Cruises

168. George Kaiser

Net Worth: $7.1 B

Source of wealth: oil & gas, banking

169. Les Wexner

Net Worth: $7.1 B

Source of wealth: retail

170. Alberto Bailleres Gonzalez

Net Worth: $6.9 B

Source of wealth: mining

171. Dhanin Chearavanont

Net Worth: $6.8 B

Source of wealth: food

172. Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

Net Worth: $6.8 B

Source of wealth: commodities

173. Alexei Kuzmichev

Net Worth: $6.7 B

Source of wealth: oil, banking, telecom

174. Nicky Oppenheimer

Net Worth: $6.6 B

Source of wealth: diamonds

175. Peter Woo

Net Worth: $6.6 B

Source of wealth: real estate

176. Jean-Claude Decaux

Net Worth: $6.5 B

Source of wealth: advertising

177. David Geffen

Net Worth: $6.5 B

Source of wealth: entertainment

178. James Chambers

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: Media

179. Walter Droege

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: Consulting

180. Graeme Hart

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: investments

181. Sandra Ortega Mera

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: Zara

182. Katharine Rayner

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: Media

183. Margaretta Taylor

Net Worth: $6.4 B

Source of wealth: Media

184. John Grayken

Net Worth: $6.3 B

Source of wealth: private equity

185. Uday Kotak

Net Worth: $6.3 B

Source of wealth: banking

186. Qiangdong Liu

Net Worth: $6.3 B

Source of wealth: e-commerce

187. John Malone

Net Worth: $6.3 B

Source of wealth: cable television

188. Silvio Berlusconi

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: media

189. Garrett Camp

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: Uber Technologies

190. Curt Engelhorn

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

191. Travis Kalanick

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: Uber Technologies

192. Walter Kwok

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: real estate

193. Eduardo Saverin

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: Facebook

194. Shihui Xu

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: snacks, beverages

195. Qinghou Zong

Net Worth: $6.2 B

Source of wealth: beverages

196. Giorgio Armani

Net Worth: $6.1 B

Source of wealth: Armani

197. Kumar Birla

Net Worth: $6.1 B

Source of wealth: commodities

198. Eva Gonda de Rivera

Net Worth: $6.1 B

Source of wealth: beverages

199. Wolfgang Marguerre

Net Worth: $6.1 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

200. Hansjoerg Wyss

Net Worth: $6.1 B

Source of wealth: medical devices

201. Jay Y. Lee

Net Worth: $6 B

Source of wealth: Samsung

202. Gordon Moore

Net Worth: $6 B

Source of wealth: Intel

203. Frederik Paulsen

Net Worth: $6 B

Source of wealth: health care

204. Eng-Meng Tsai

Net Worth: $6 B

Source of wealth: food, beverages

205. Patrick Drahi

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: Telecom

206. Philip & Cristina Green

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: retail

207. Mikhail Gutseriev

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: oil, real estate

208. Shahid Khan

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: auto parts

209. Richard LeFrak

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: real estate

210. Tom & Judy Love

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: retail & gas stations

211. Sutong Pan

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: real estate, finance

212. Zhidong Zhang

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: internet media

213. Qunfei Zhou

Net Worth: $5.9 B

Source of wealth: smartphone glass covers

214. Michael Kadoorie

Net Worth: $5.8 B

Source of wealth: hotels, energy

215. Jorn Rausing

Net Worth: $5.8 B

Source of wealth: packaging

216. John A. Sobrato

Net Worth: $5.8 B

Source of wealth: real estate

217. Dennis Washington

Net Worth: $5.8 B

Source of wealth: construction, mining

218. Christoffel Wiese

Net Worth: $5.8 B

Source of wealth: retailing

219. Francis Choi

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: real estate

220. Sergei Galitsky

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: retail

221. Antonia Johnson

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: diversified

222. Pauline MacMillan Keinath

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: Cargill

223. Guanqiu Lu

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: conglomerate

224. Sunil Mittal

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: telecom

225. Denis O'Brien

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: telecom

226. Augusto & Giorgio Perfetti

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: candy

227. Melker Schorling

Net Worth: $5.7 B

Source of wealth: investments

228. Heinrich Deichmann

Net Worth: $5.6 B

Source of wealth: Footwear

229. Terry Gou

Net Worth: $5.6 B

Source of wealth: electronics

230. David Green

Net Worth: $5.6 B

Source of wealth: retail

231. Hiroshi Mikitani

Net Worth: $5.6 B

Source of wealth: online retailing

232. Stef Wertheimer

Net Worth: $5.6 B

Source of wealth: metalworking tools

233. Maria Asuncion Aramburuzabala

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: beer, investments

234. Desh Bandhu Gupta

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

235. Ralph Lauren

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: Ralph Lauren

236. Ted Lerner

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

237. James Ratcliffe

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: chemicals

238. Finn Rausing

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: packaging

239. Kirsten Rausing

Net Worth: $5.5 B

Source of wealth: packaging

240. Bruce Halle

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: tires

241. James Irving

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: diversified

242. Jason Jiang

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: advertising

243. Richard Kinder

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: pipelines

244. Juan Roig

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: supermarkets

245. Charles Schwab

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: discount brokerage

246. Aloys Wobben

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: wind turbines

247. Chuanhua Xu

Net Worth: $5.4 B

Source of wealth: chemicals

248. Vincent Bollore

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: investments

249. Guenther Fielmann

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: optometry

250. Ray Lee Hunt

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: oil, real estate

251. Bruce Kovner

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

252. Kar Po Law

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: real estate

253. Joe Lewis

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: investments

254. Leng Chan Quek

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: banking, real estate

255. Johann Rupert

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: luxury goods

256. Andrei Skoch

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: steel

257. Jack Taylor

Net Worth: $5.3 B

Source of wealth: Enterprise Rent-A-Car

258. Laiwa Chan

Net Worth: $5.2 B

Source of wealth: real estate

259. Anders Holch Povlsen

Net Worth: $5.2 B

Source of wealth: retail

260. Trevor Rees-Jones

Net Worth: $5.2 B

Source of wealth: oil & gas

261. Christy Walton

Net Worth: $5.2 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

262. Vivien Chen

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: real estate

263. Harold Hamm

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: oil & gas

264. Diane Hendricks

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: roofing

265. Yongxing Liu

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: agribusiness

266. Ian & Richard Livingstone

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: real estate

267. Frank Lowy

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: shopping malls

268. Ludwig Merckle

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

269. Dan Olsson

Net Worth: $5.1 B

Source of wealth: diversified

270. Majid Al Futtaim

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: real estate, retail

271. Charles Dolan

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: cable television

272. Israel Englander

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

273. Cheng Liang Goh

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: paints

274. John Gokongwei

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: diversified

275. Guangchang Guo

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: conglomerate

276. Tamara Gustavson

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: self storage

277. Jerry Jones

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: Dallas Cowboys

278. Karl-Heinz Kipp

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: retail

279. Kwee

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: Pontiac Land Group

280. Willi & Isolde Liebherr

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: construction

281. Yu-lin Lin

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

282. Arnon Milchan

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: movie making

283. Shashi & Ravi Ruia

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: diversified

284. David Shaw

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

285. Huiyan Yang

Net Worth: $5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

286. Abdulla bin Ahmad Al Ghurair

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: diversified

287. David & Frederick Barclay

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: media, retail

288. Richard Branson

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: Virgin

289. Jim Davis

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: New Balance

290. Albert Frere

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: investments

291. Daniel Gilbert

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: Quicken Loans

292. Akira Mori

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: real estate

293. Robert Rowling

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: investments

294. Alejandro Santo Domingo

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: beer

295. Andres Santo Domingo

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: beer

296. Bernard (Barry) Sherman

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

297. Chairul Tanjung

Net Worth: $4.9 B

Source of wealth: diversified

298. Carl Cook

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: medical devices

299. Michael & Marian Ilitch

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: pizza

300. Bidzina Ivanishvili

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: investments

301. Robert Kraft

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: New England Patriots

302. Zhiqiang Lu

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: conglomerate

303. Michael Stoschek

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: autoparts

304. Sam Zell

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: real estate, private equity

305. Daniel Ziff

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: investments

306. Dirk Ziff

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: investments

307. Robert Ziff

Net Worth: $4.8 B

Source of wealth: investments

308. Richard DeVos

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: Amway

309. Gustaf Douglas

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: security

310. Arthur Irving

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: oil

311. Yueting Jia

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: online video

312. Paul Tudor Jones

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

313. Whitney MacMillan

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: Cargill

314. Guangxin Sun

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: diversified

315. Hong Piow Teh

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: banking

316. Hans Peter Wild

Net Worth: $4.7 B

Source of wealth: flavorings

317. Pyotr Aven

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: oil, banking, telecom

318. Laurence Graff

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: diamond jewelry

319. Charles Johnson

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: money management

320. Shin Cheng Lee

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: palm oil, real estate

321. Richard Li

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: telecom

322. Bruno Schroder

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: banking

323. Mark Shoen

Net Worth: $4.6 B

Source of wealth: U-Haul

324. Dona Bertarelli

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: biotech

325. Leon Black

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: private equity

326. Carlos and Alejandro Bulgheroni

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: oil and gas

327. Clive Calder

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: record label

328. Ann Walton Kroenke

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

329. George Lucas

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: Star Wars

330. Theo Mueller

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: dairy

331. Jim Pattison

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: diversified

332. Sergei Popov

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: banking

333. Sumner Redstone

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: Media

334. Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: ball bearings

335. David Sun

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: computer hardware

336. Donald Trump

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: television, real estate

337. John Tu

Net Worth: $4.5 B

Source of wealth: computer hardware

338. Brian Acton

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: WhatsApp

339. Jeronimo Arango

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: retail

340. Pierre Bellon

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: food services

341. Stanley Druckenmiller

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

342. David Duffield

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: business software

343. Micky Jagtiani

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: retail

344. Wolfgang Reimann

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: consumer goods

345. Matthias Reimann-Andersen

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: consumer goods

346. Stefan Reimann-Andersen

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: consumer goods

347. Renate Reimann-Haas

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: consumer goods

348. Emanuele (Lino) Saputo

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: cheese

349. Jinquan Tong

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: real estate

350. Chuanfu Wang

Net Worth: $4.4 B

Source of wealth: batteries, autos

351. Bernard Broermann

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: hospitals

352. Mong-Koo Chung

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: motor vehicles

353. Joao Roberto Marinho

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: media

354. Jose Roberto Marinho

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: media

355. Roberto Irineu Marinho

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: media

356. Ricardo Salinas Pliego

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: retail, media

357. Jianjun Wei

Net Worth: $4.3 B

Source of wealth: automobiles

358. Ralph Dommermuth

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: internet service provider

359. Jeffery Hildebrand

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: oil

360. Henry Kravis

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: private equity

361. Sri Prakash Lohia

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: polyester

362. Carrie Perrodo

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: oil

363. Odd Reitan

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: retail, real estate

364. Stewart and Lynda Resnick

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: agriculture, water

365. Joseph Tsai

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: e-commerce

366. Wei Wang

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: package delivery service

367. Cho Yaw Wee

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: banking

368. M.A. Yusuff Ali

Net Worth: $4.2 B

Source of wealth: retail

369. Americo Amorim

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: energy, investments

370. Dannine Avara

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: pipelines

371. John Doerr

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: venture capital

372. Scott Duncan

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: pipelines

373. Milane Frantz

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: pipelines

374. Hongjia Gong

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: investments

375. Yonghao Liu

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: agribusiness

376. George Roberts

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: private equity

377. Mark Scheinberg

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: online gambling

378. Reinhold Schmieding

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: medical devices

379. Randa Williams

Net Worth: $4.1 B

Source of wealth: pipelines

380. Jin Sook & Do Won Chang

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: fashion retail

381. James Dyson

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: vacuums

382. Chang-Woo Han

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: pachinko parlors

383. Bertil Hult

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: education

384. James Jannard

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: sunglasses

385. Vikram Lal

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: motorcycles

386. Nancy Walton Laurie

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: Wal-Mart

387. Iskander Makhmudov

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: mining, metals, machinery

388. Terrence Pegula

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: natural gas

389. Jerry Speyer

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: real estate

390. Leonard Stern

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: real estate

391. Lucio Tan

Net Worth: $4 B

Source of wealth: diversified

392. Shari Arison

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: Carnival Cruises

393. Leonid Fedun

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: oil

394. Frits Goldschmeding

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: temp agency

395. Martha Ingram

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: book distribution, transportation

396. Rupert Johnson

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: money management

397. Edwin Leong

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: real estate

398. Mary Alice Dorrance Malone

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: Campbell Soup

399. John Sall

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: software

400. Jeffrey Skoll

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: eBay

401. Sheldon Solow

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: real estate

402. Jianping Zhou

Net Worth: $3.9 B

Source of wealth: apparel

403. Heinz-Georg Baus

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: home improvement stores

404. Denise Coates

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: online gambling

405. Traudl Engelhorn

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals/medical equipment

406. Ursula Engelhorn

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals/medical equipment

407. Michael Herz

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: coffee

408. Wolfgang Herz

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: coffee

409. Randal Kirk

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

410. Niels Peter Louis-Hansen

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: medical devices

411. Fredrik Lundberg

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: real estate, investments

412. John Morris

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: sporting goods retail

413. H. Ross Perot

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: computer services, real estate

414. Michael Pieper

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: kitchen appliances

415. Karen Pritzker

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: hotels, investments

416. Viktor Rashnikov

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: steel

417. Leandro Rizzuto

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: consumer products

418. Edward Roski

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: real estate

419. Walter Scott

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: utilities, telecom

420. Jindong Zhang

Net Worth: $3.8 B

Source of wealth: appliance retailer

421. Rahel Blocher

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: chemicals

422. Vanich Chaiyawan

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: insurance, beverages

423. Juan Carlos Escotet

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: banking

424. Phillip Frost

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

425. Wing Mau Hui

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: real estate

426. Jeremy Jacobs

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: sports concessions

427. Nathan Kirsh

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: retail, real estate

428. Hyuk-Bin Kwon

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: online games

429. Magdalena Martullo-Blocher

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: chemicals

430. Axel Oberwelland

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: candy

431. Idan Ofer

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: drilling, shipping

432. Horst Paulmann

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: retail

433. Nassef Sawiris

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: construction, chemicals

434. George Ty

Net Worth: $3.7 B

Source of wealth: banking

435. Alexander Abramov

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: steel, mining

436. Martin & Olivier Bouygues

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: construction, media

437. Subhash Chandra

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: media

438. Archie Aldis Emmerson

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: timberland, lumber mills

439. Andrei Guriev

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: fertilizers

440. Elizabeth Holmes

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: blood testing

441. Masatoshi Ito

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: retail

442. Dominika & Sebastian Kulczyk

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: diversified

443. Siegfried Meister

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: appliances

444. Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: Cargill

445. Anthony Pratt

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: manufacturing

446. Steven Rales

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: manufacturing

447. Ira Rennert

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: investments

448. Julian Robertson

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: hedge funds

449. Harry Stine

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: agriculture

450. Ronda Stryker

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: medical equipment

451. Lottie Tham

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: H&M

452. Frank Wang

Net Worth: $3.6 B

Source of wealth: drones

453. Gautam Adani

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: commodities, infrastructure

454. Michael Ashley

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: sports retailing

455. Benu Gopal Bangur

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: cement

456. Peter Buck

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: Subway sandwich shops

457. Rick Caruso

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

458. Dan Friedkin

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: Toyota dealerships

459. Antti Herlin

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: elevators, escalators

460. Kieu Hoang

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

461. Savitri Jindal

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: steel

462. Ronald Lauder

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: Estee Lauder

463. Wengen Liang

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: construction equipment

464. Masahiro Miki

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: retail

465. Igor Olenicoff

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

466. James Packer

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: casinos

467. Zhengmin Pan

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: electronics

468. Pankaj Patel

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

469. Isaac Perlmutter

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: Marvel comics

470. Robert Rich

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: frozen foods

471. Haim Saban

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: TV network, investments

472. Steven Spielberg

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: Movies

473. Keiichiro Takahara

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: diapers

474. Steven Udvar-Hazy

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: aircraft leasing

475. Wenxue Wang

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: real estate

476. Shiping Zhang

Net Worth: $3.5 B

Source of wealth: aluminum products

477. Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: dairy farms

478. Isak Andic

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: clothing retail

479. Neil Bluhm

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: real estate

480. John Catsimatidis

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: oil, real estate

481. Giuseppe De'Longhi

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: coffee makers

482. Abilio dos Santos Diniz

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: retail

483. Pansy Ho

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: casinos

484. Michel Leclercq

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: sporting goods

485. Elisabeth Mohn

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: media

486. Kang Pang

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: soy sauce maker

487. Guanghe Qiu

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: apparel retail

488. Mitchell Rales

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: manufacturing, investments

489. Paolo & Gianfelice Mario Rocca

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: pipe manufacturing

490. Lynn Schusterman

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: oil & gas, investments

491. Friede Springer

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: publishing

492. Piaoyang Sun

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: pharmaceuticals

493. Jeff Sutton

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: real estate

494. Russ Weiner

Net Worth: $3.4 B

Source of wealth: energy drinks

495. Marc Benioff

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: business software

496. Nathan Blecharczyk

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: Airbnb

497. Bubba Cathy

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: Chick-Fil-A

498. Dan Cathy

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: Chick-Fil-A

499. David Cheriton

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: Google

500. Brian Chesky

Net Worth: $3.3 B

Source of wealth: Airbnb

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President Trump on Friday assailed the F.B.I. as a dangerously porous agency, charging that leaks of classified information from within its ranks were putting the country at risk — and calling for an immediate hunt for the leakers.

Mr. Trump’s complaints were his latest attacks on his own government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which he has characterized as misguided, irresponsible and politically motivated. The criticisms appeared to be a response to a news report Thursday night indicating that a White House official had asked the F.B.I. to rebut an article detailing contacts between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russian intelligence officials.

The report on Thursday night by CNN asserted that a White House official had called top leaders at the F.B.I. to request that they contact reporters to dispute the account, which appeared last week in The New York Times. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Friday morning that the CNN report was “indefensible and inaccurate,” and he has also called the Times article untrue.

But on Friday morning, Mr. Trump’s focus was on which members of his administration were sharing unflattering information about him with reporters, and his desire to find the perpetrators.

Mr. Spicer argued on Friday that CNN had misreported a series of exchanges between Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, and leaders of the F.B.I. in the wake of the Times report.

At a briefing conducted on the condition of anonymity for the White House press pool, senior administration officials said it was top F.B.I. officials — first Andrew G. McCabe, the deputy director, and later James B. Comey, the director — who approached Mr. Priebus the day after the article appeared to say that it was false.

Mr. Priebus, according to the White House officials, then asked the men what they could do to rebut it publicly. They apologized and said they were unable to issue a statement or otherwise comment on the matter, according to the White House briefing.

At one point, the White House officials said, Mr. Priebus asked Mr. McCabe if he could say publicly that “senior intelligence officials” had informed him that the Times article was inaccurate, and he was told that he could. Mr. Priebus did that in an interview on Sunday.

The F.B.I. on Friday declined to provide its account of those conversations and declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s Twitter statements.

The executive editor of The Times, Dean Baquet, said on Friday that “The Times had numerous sources confirming this story.”

“Attacking it does not make it less true,” Mr. Baquet said.

An F.B.I. official confirmed on Thursday night that the White House had asked last week for the bureau’s help disputing the story, and that senior F.B.I. officials had rejected the request, citing the continuing investigation into Russian efforts to affect the election.

The official declined to say whether White House officials had reached out directly to Mr. Comey, Mr. McCabe or others. The official said the White House had reached out to American intelligence agencies in the hopes of enlisting their help.

Tension between the F.B.I. and the White House is not unheard-of. President Bill Clinton had an icy relationship with his F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh, whose agents investigated the president and his associates for years. But it is very unusual for a president to openly criticize the entire bureau.

Mr. Trump’s remarks add to an already unusual moment in history for the F.B.I. The bureau, along with other American intelligence agencies, has concluded that Russia unleashed a hacking campaign to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, in part to help Mr. Trump. F.B.I. agents are also investigating some of Mr. Trump’s former campaign advisers and associates.

Mr. Trump has been disparaging the intelligence community for months, particularly in response to its conclusion that Russia sought to influence the election on his behalf.

In December, he suggested that United States intelligence agencies could not be trusted because they erroneously concluded that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In January, he denounced leaks emanating from the intelligence community and argued that they were politically motivated. “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” he said.

The President Trump we saw Friday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference was born six years ago on the exact same stage, when he first addressed the annual political conference.

“It's nothing different,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Thursday. “If you go back and watch the tape of President Trump . . . that was the Trump agenda.”

Stephen K. Bannon added, “This is really where he got his launch, you know, with his ideas in the conservative movement.”

They're largely right. A comparison of the two speeches — along with Trump's 2013 CPAC address — does show plenty of consistencies in Trump's worldview. While he has certainly expanded upon the things he talks about, at the core of his 2011 message was the same nationalism, populism and flair for the politically dramatic that we saw today.

And, most remarkably, what seemed off-key in 2011 at CPAC suddenly seems remarkably in keeping with the conservative movement. Trump didn't really change; conservatives have changed for him.

First, the similarities.

Here's Trump in 2011: “I am also well acquainted with winning, and that's what this country needs now: winning.”

And today: “We don't win anymore. When was the last time we won? Did we win a war? Did we win anything? Do we win anything? We're going to win. We're going on win big, folks. We're going to start winning again, believe me. We're going to win.”

Here's Trump in 2011: “It's for this reason that the United States is becoming the laughingstock of the world. "

And in 2013 at CPAC: “That's what we have to do with this country. We've got to fix it. We've got to make it incredible. Right now we're a laughingstock.”

And now today: “You wonder where did the people come from that negotiated these deals. Where did they come from?”

Trump's nationalism back in 2011 caught some off-guard at a conference which was then dominated by true-believer, small-government conservatives and Ron Paul supporters. As recently as last year, there was a movement to exclude Trump from the conference. But this year, it's the new normal for the conservative grass-roots. Here's a little more of Trump's 2011 address that could just as well have come today:

The United States has become a whipping post for the rest of the world. The world is treating us without respect; they are not treating us properly. …

America today is missing quality leadership and foreign countries have quickly realized this. …

That's an important word: Free trade. Because we don't have free trade. We don't have free trade. We don't have fair trade, and I'm a fair trade believer. I love open markets, but not when China's manipulating their currency. Not when all of these other factors are taking place.

Perhaps most tellingly, Trump in his 2011 address singled out a particular international, intergovernmental organization he thought was handing American consumers a raw deal: the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.

With gas prices topping $4 per gallon, Trump said it would soon double, and pointed the finger squarely at the ne'er-do-wells fixing the prices of oil:

We have nobody that calls up OPEC and say that price better get lower, and it better get lower fast. We have nobody that does that. They have a free rein, they have a free rein and it's amazing. You know the other day there was a small leak in the Alaska pipeline. I said watch, OPEC will announce an increase. They did. Just a small leak. Lasted like half a day. They announced an increase. … Anyway, so you have to watch OPEC.  You have to tell OPEC, folks those prices are coming down, and they're coming down fast. And we're not going to be paying 7 and 8 and 9 dollars, which believe me in a year or two from now, you're going to be paying that, as sure as you're sitting there because we have nobody to speak to them.

Take out OPEC and insert a free trade deal, NATO or the United Nations, and this could be Trump today. The reason he's not talking about OPEC probably has more to do with gasoline prices being lower than anything else. But the framework is there for railing against the brand of globalism Trump has come to even more forcefully deride as president.

If there's one difference between today's Trump and the Trump we saw then, it's that he's pragmatically adopted some of conservatives' bread-and-butter issue positions which perhaps weren't on his radar six years ago: a strong and robust military, tax reform, welfare reform, Obamacare repeal and gun rights, in particular. Trump in 2011 mentioned his opposition to Obamacare and gun control almost offhand, as he was ticking off some conservative boxes. At Friday's CPAC, though, he was careful to spread the love around to all the conservative constituencies.

And that's really the most notable aspect of how the conservative movement become the Trump movement. A lot of these conservatives weren't easy fits for a wealthy former Democrat without much religious conservative cred and with a bigger appetite for nationalism than more-traditional Republican litmus-test issues. But the conservative movement fell in love with Trump's style and decided to worry about the details later. Now, his details are theirs.

While bragging about his business success back in 2011, Trump noticed he was getting some strange looks and reactions. “A little different, right?” he said. “A little different than what you've been hearing.”

It's not so different any more.

Vice President Mike Pence told a rattled Europe on Monday that President Trump fully supported crucial European institutions — despite the president’s perplexing comments and occasional insults — and said he supported the firing of the national security adviser.

“The president did ask me to come here to Brussels, to the home of the European Union, and deliver an additional message,” Mr. Pence said while standing next to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council and a former prime minister of Poland. “So today it’s my privilege, on behalf of President Trump, to express the strong commitment of the United States to continued cooperation and partnership with the European Union.”

Asked for his response to the resignation of the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn — whom the administration blamed for misleading Mr. Pence about the extent of his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States — Mr. Pence looked uncomfortable but said he supported Mr. Trump’s decision to ask for Mr. Flynn’s resignation.

“Let me say, I’m very grateful for the close working relationship I have with the president of the United States,” Mr. Pence said, adding, “I was disappointed to learn that the facts that have been conveyed to me by General Flynn were inaccurate.”

The administration has not explained why Mr. Trump did not immediately tell Mr. Pence about Mr. Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador after the president learned about them from his top lawyer, and Mr. Pence did not shed light on that question on Monday.

Smiles and handshakes abounded before and after Mr. Pence delivered his reassuring words, but Europeans — taken aback by Mr. Trump’s occasional fulminations against European institutions that have long been the bedrock of American policy here — were still wary.

Last month, Mr. Trump called the European Union “basically a vehicle for Germany,” language that stunned leaders of the bloc, which has been struggling with economic malaise, migration and Britain’s intention to withdraw. Days later, Mr. Tusk, who represents the union’s 28 national leaders, described Mr. Trump’s bombastic and skeptical language as a potential threat to European unity alongside Russian aggression, Chinese assertiveness and Islamist terrorism.

And just moments before Mr. Pence held his final news conference of his first overseas trip here, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter: “The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!” (Sweden is a member of the European Union, but not of NATO.)

On Monday, after meeting with Mr. Pence, Mr. Tusk said he felt reassured. In a detailed statement, he said he had asked Mr. Pence whether the Trump administration was committed to maintaining an international order based on rules and laws; whether Mr. Trump was committed to NATO and to “the closest possible trans-Atlantic cooperation”; and whether Europe could count “as always in the past, on the United States’ wholehearted and unequivocal, let me repeat, unequivocal support for the idea of a united Europe.”

“In reply to these three matters,” Mr. Tusk said, “I heard today from Vice President Pence three times ‘yes’! After such a positive declaration, both Europeans and Americans must simply practice what they preach.”

Mr. Tusk said he appreciated a story that Mr. Pence had shared during the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, a gathering of foreign policy experts, about visiting Europe for the first time, as a teenager.

“On Saturday in Munich,” Mr. Tusk said, “you mentioned that during your trip across Europe in 1977 with your older brother, you found yourselves at some point in West Berlin, marveling at what you saw, then crossing through Checkpoint Charlie only to see the ‘shadow of repression hanging over people.’”

“As you know,” Mr. Tusk continued, “I had been living under this shadow for over 30 years.”

In his statement, Mr. Tusk also recalled President Ronald Reagan’s fight against communism.

Mr. Trump’s presidency has upended Washington, where his rambling and grievance-filled news conferences, chaotic decision-making and thin staffing levels have left much of the capital uncertain how to manage the earthquake he has wrought. The aftershocks swept across Europe, leaving those who depend on the United States for security and vital economic ties uncertain about where they stand, particularly in the face of a resurgent Russia.

A cavalcade of surrogates for Mr. Trump — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and now Mr. Pence — have come to Europe in recent days to try to settle nerves here. Their speeches have helped.

But nobody is quite sure whether these surrogates truly speak for Mr. Trump or whether, even if they do, Mr. Trump might soon change his mind.

“Of course European Union officials are happy to have Pence here, and they are happy about what he said, but that’s not going to cancel out the deep and lingering doubt in many other European capitals about what the White House and President Trump actually want,” Guntram B. Wolff, director of Bruegel, a research organization in Brussels, said by telephone. “What Europe still has to do is to be prepared for the worst, and to try to work with partners around the world to support and defend multilateralism, and to do so without being antagonistic.”

Among the concerns shared by many European policy makers is the possibility that the Trump administration will impose protectionist tariffs as part of the president’s goal of bringing jobs back to the United States.

In brief remarks before his own meeting with Mr. Pence, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, warned that the United States was more dependent on Europe than was commonly believed.

“The U.S. economy is depending more than some in the U.S. would think on the exchanges, the trade volumes, including Indiana, by the way, between the U.S. and the European Union,” Mr. Juncker said, referring to the state where Mr. Pence was governor before becoming vice president.

In his own remarks, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he had been reassured of the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO.

“I have heard exactly the same firm message from the president of the United States in two phone calls, from the vice president in meetings today and in Munich, and from Secretaries Mattis and Kelly,” said Mr. Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, referring to Mr. Mattis and the secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, who were both in Munich over the weekend. “They have all conveyed the same message: that the United States is firmly committed to the trans-Atlantic partnership and have an unwavering support for the NATO alliance.”

IN ONE of the many interrogations Lee Jae-yong has undergone in connection with a presidential influence-peddling scandal, he said that he would surrender management control of Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant that he is running on behalf of his incapacitated father, Lee Kun-hee, “if there is anyone better than me”. He may now be forced to do so. On February 17th Mr Lee was arrested on suspicion of bribery, embezzlement, perjury, moving assets abroad illegally and concealing evidence of criminal profit, after a local court agreed to a request from a special prosecution team for a pre-trial detention.

Last month investigators accused Mr Lee of paying 43bn won ($36m) in bribes to organisations tied to Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye (who is herself under investigation by the constitutional court). The prosecution team’s first request for a pre-trial arrest warrant was rejected. But the court reversed its decision, it said today, after prosecutors put forward additional evidence. (The court denied, however, a request to arrest another Samsung executive, Park Sang-jin, on similar charges.) The move allows prosecutors to detain Mr Lee for a total of 20 days while they pursue their probe.

The detention of Mr Lee suggests Samsung was not simply a victim of state extortion. State prosecutors investigating the case had stopped short last year of accusing them of bribery. The special prosecutor, however, alleges that, in return for that multi-million-dollar payment, Samsung secured government support via the National Pension Service (NPS), a huge pension fund, for a controversial $8bn merger of two affiliates—Cheil Industries, the group’s de facto holding company, and Samsung C&T, its construction arm—in July 2015. Last month prosecutors formally charged the head of the NPS with abuse of authority for, they allege, ordering the fund, which is a shareholder, to cast its votes in favour of the merger. Samsung admits to providing grants but denies all accusations of bribery.

The arrest signals that the longstanding collusion between the state and the chaebol, the large conglomerates that fuelled South Korea’s impressive growth, is no longer assured, says Chung Sun-sup of Chaebul.com, a corporate tracker. Many feel that South Korean courts have too long resisted holding chaebol bosses fully to account: Mr Chung says that, after the judges’ first refusal to grant a warrant last month, the mood within legal circles was disapproving. As head of Samsung, the elder Mr Lee (who has been in hospital since 2014) was convicted twice, and twice pardoned by the president of the time—but spent no time behind bars. His son has not yet been formally charged, yet is now in jail.
Park Jung-man of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, an activist group, says that other chaebolbosses who have been accused of wrongdoing in the case—among them the heads of Hyundai, SK and Lotte—are “all on the line now”.
Mr Lee could yet decide to apply for bail. Prosecutors still need to prove their case in court. But for many South Koreans, fed up with the impunity of its corporate chieftains, his pre-trial arrest will be seen as an early indictment of sorts. In a recent survey by Realmeter, a local pollster, over 40% said the government should mete out stiffer punishments to corrupt bosses.

For now, investors in Samsung are composed. When the elder Mr Lee resigned, for a short spell, after his indictment in 2008, professional managers stepped in; fellow vice-chairmen are likely to do the same for his son. Mr Chung says any formal replacement would risk factional division within the company. And, like other bosses behind bars, Mr Lee is expected to continue to steer the company through visiting staff and lawyers. During the first year and a half after his imprisonment in 2013, Chey Tae-won of SK reportedly had three visitors a day, and a merger that increased his direct stake in SK’s holding company from 0.02% to 23% took place. A vote on February 17th on the $8bn acquisition of Harman, an automotive firm, that Samsung announced last November (the company’s largest-ever), was expected to go smoothly.

But if Mr Lee’s detention is extended, Mr Chung expects M&A activity, which had ticked up under his stewardship, to fall away, as well as some of its investment in research and development. And it is not certain that the courts will have much sympathy for prolonged attempts to run the company from a distance.

"Such an action was done three or four times and they were given a few dollars for it, and with the last target, Kim Jong Nam, allegedly there were dangerous materials in the sprayer," Karnavian said.

"She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents," he said.

Karnavian's comments come after a male relative of Aisyah said in an Indonesian television interview that she had been hired to perform in a short comedy movie and traveled to China as part of this work. Indonesian Immigration has said Aisyah traveled to Malaysia and other countries, which it did not specify.

South Korea has been quick to accuse its enemies in North Korea of dispatching a hit squad to kill Kim Jong Nam at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, saying two female assassins poisoned him and then fled in a taxi.

Although Kim Jong Nam is believed to have two sons and a daughter with two women living in Beijing and Macau, police in Malaysia say none has come forward to claim the body or provide DNA samples.

North Korean diplomats in Malaysia have requested custody of Kim Jong Nam's body, arguing that he had a North Korean passport. The officials objected to an autopsy, but Malaysian authorities went ahead with the procedure anyway because they did not receive a formal complaint.

Investigators were still trying to piece together details of the case, and South Korea has not said how it concluded that North Korea was behind the killing.

Malaysian police were questioning three suspects - Aisyah, another women who carried a Vietnamese passport, and a man they said is Aisyah's boyfriend - and waiting for autopsy results that could shed light on why Kim Jong Nam suddenly fell ill at the airport on Monday as he waited for a flight home to Macau.

Dizzy and in pain, he told medical workers at the airport he had been sprayed with a chemical. Within two hours, Malaysian officials said, he was dead.

Kim Jong Nam, who was 45 or 46, had lived in exile for years and was estranged from his younger half brother, the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He reportedly fell out of favor in 2001, when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Yoji Gomi, a Japanese journalist who wrote a book about Kim Jong Nam, said he criticized the family regime and believed a leader should be chosen "through a democratic process."

Gomi said he met Kim Jong Nam by chance at Beijing's international airport in 2004, leading to exchanges of 150 emails and two interviews in 2011 - one in Beijing and another in Macau - totaling seven hours.

Kim Jong Nam appeared nervous during the interview in Macau, Gomi said.

"He must have been aware of the danger, but I believe he still wanted to convey his views to Pyongyang via the media," Gomi said. "He was sweating all over his body, and seemed very uncomfortable when he responded to my questions. He was probably worried about the impact of his comments and expressions. The thought now gives me a pain in my heart."

In Indonesia, Aisyah's family and former neighbors said they were stunned by her arrest, describing her as a polite and quiet young mother.

Between 2008 and 2011 she and her then-husband lived in a home with flaking red paint in a narrow alley of Tambora, a densely populated neighborhood in western Jakarta.

Her former father-in-law, Tjia Liang Kiong, who lives in a nearby middle-class neighborhood and last saw Aisyah on Jan. 28, described her as respectful.

"I was shocked to hear that she was arrested for murdering someone," he said. "I don't believe that she would commit such a crime or what the media says - that she is an intelligence agent."

Aisyah's mother, Benah, said by telephone that the family comes from a humble village background and has no ability to help her.

"Since we heard that from the television, I could not sleep and eat. Same as her father, he just prays and reads the holy Quran. He even does not want to speak," said Benah. "As villagers, we could only pray."

According to Kiong, Aisyah only completed junior high school and moved to Malaysia with her husband in 2011 to seek a better life after the garment-making shop they ran from their home went out of business. The couple left their nearly 2-year-old son in Jakarta under the care of Kiong and his wife.

She and her husband divorced in 2012.

Malaysia, which is approaching developed-nation income levels, is a magnet for millions of Indonesians, who typically find work there as bar hostesses, maids and construction and plantation workers.

Malaysia said Friday it wants DNA samples from Kim Jong Nam's family as part of the post-mortem procedure and that officials were not yet willing to hand the body over to the North Koreans.

"If there is no claim by next-of-kin and upon exhausting all avenues (to obtain DNA), we will finally then hand over the body to the (North Korean) embassy," said Abdul Samah Mat, a senior Malaysian police official.

He would not speculate on how long that process might take.

The three suspects were arrested separately on Wednesday and Thursday.

The women were identified using surveillance videos from the airport, police said. Early Friday, police took the pair back to the crime scene at the budget terminal of the airport "for further investigations," Abdul Samah said. Local media reported that police wanted to recreate the crime scene to establish new leads.

President Trump knew for three weeks that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn misrepresented his contacts with a Russian diplomat before firing him under pressure, the White House acknowledged Tuesday in offering an account of Flynn’s downfall that differed strikingly from what it said a day earlier.

After days of questions on whether Flynn had spoken with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. in December about new sanctions implemented by the Obama administration, White House officials said Monday that Trump was “evaluating” the situation. Trump’s review appeared to come to a swift conclusion with the announcement that he had accepted Flynn’s resignation.

But on Tuesday, the White House said Flynn’s actions had been under internal review for three weeks. And while the White House concluded that Flynn hadn’t acted illegally in phone calls and text messages with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a “trust issue” arose that ultimately led the president to conclude “he had to make a change,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

“The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for a General Flynn's resignation,” Spicer said in his daily briefing. He didn’t elaborate on the other issues.

The contrasting accounts underscored that Trump’s concern over Flynn appeared to deepen only once his falsehoods became public, and it served to ramp up questions about Russia’s influence on Trump and his administration. 

Republican senators called for a full and open investigation into Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak. 

“We should look into it exhaustively so that at the end of this process nobody wonders whether there was a stone left unturned, and shouldn't reach conclusions before you have the information that you need to have to make those conclusions,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate intelligence committee and vice chairman of the Senate Republican conference, told a St. Louis radio station. 

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both longtime skeptics of Trump, joined Blunt in asking that Flynn account for what happened.

“What I’d like to know is, did Gen. Flynn make this phone call by himself, if he was directed, by who?” Graham said. 

Graham did not name Trump, and the White House insisted that if Flynn had acted out of line, it was not at Trump’s behest.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, insisted there would be a full investigation. “Obviously there’s a lot of concerns,” he said after senators convened on the floor for morning votes. “What form that takes, what committee, what individuals are involved, that remains to be seen.”

Democratic lawmakers called for Flynn to testify on the matter; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has pushed for a 9/11-style panel to investigate Russia's role in the election.

Flynn’s trouble began last month with reports that he had discussed impending U.S. sanctions with Kislyak before Trump took office, a breach of protocol that also raised questions about whether he violated laws banning U.S. citizens from engaging in foreign policy.

Vice President Mike Pence and other Trump officials had backed Flynn, but Flynn’s statement that he and Kislyak did not discuss sanctions was undermined last week by reports that evidence of their talks existed, including transcripts from routine U.S. monitoring of foreign officials’ communications.

The White House moved Tuesday to distance itself from Flynn. 

“Misleading the vice president really was the key,” Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said on NBC’s “Today” show. “That made the situation unsustainable.”

She tried to portray Trump as divided between his loyalties and the distraction Flynn had become.

“The president’s very loyal. He’s a very loyal person,” Conway said. “[Flynn] knew he had become a lightning rod and he made that decision.”

Trump ignored shouted questions about Flynn at a meeting Tuesday at the White House. His only public response was a tweet questioning why “so many illegal leaks” were made to the news media. 

As Trump met with Pence and then Flynn on Monday night before the resignation was announced, the Washington Post first revealed another layer to the saga: Law enforcement and intelligence officials had told the White House weeks ago about evidence contradicting Flynn’s accounts of his calls with Kislyak and that they were concerned he would be susceptible to blackmail by Russia.

The Obama administration had imposed sanctions Dec. 29 to punish Russia for meddling in the U.S. election, but Russia declined to retaliate, sounding alarms for Sally Yates, then the deputy attorney general, and others, according to a former and a current U.S. official. Yates briefly served as acting attorney general under Trump before being fired for refusing to defend in court his temporary bans on entry into the U.S. by refugees and people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Intelligence officials began searching databases and found logs of calls between Kislyak and Flynn. They obtained transcripts of the secretly recorded phone calls and realized that Flynn and the ambassador had discussed the sanctions, the officials said. The officials declined to provide details about the discussions.

Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador emerged in news reports in mid-January, before Trump’s inauguration. His transition team denied that sanctions were discussed in the calls, and Pence told CBS News that the timing of Flynn’s call with the ambassador, as sanctions were announced, was “entirely coincidental.”

Yates and Obama administration intelligence officials grew anxious because Pence’s statement introduced the possibility that Flynn had lied to him. If so, Flynn might vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians who could threaten to expose him, said the former official. 

Yates and other Obama administration officials discussed whether to alert Trump but decided against it to preserve the FBI's broader investigation of potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. The officials declined to discuss the nature of that investigation.

Then, on Jan. 23, Spicer again claimed sanctions were not discussed, again astonishing Yates.

After discussing the matter with U.S. law enforcement officials, Yates felt she had to alert the White House because the risks of blackmail were too great and Flynn was in potential violation of the Logan Act, a never-used law from 1799 that bars citizens from negotiating with other governments.

Yates approached White House counsel Donald McGahn and alerted him to the transcripts and discussion of sanctions. It is not clear what McGahn did with the information.

Flynn’s resignation “raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions” toward Russia, McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday, calling it “a troubling indication of the dysfunction of the current national security apparatus.”

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said the White House made the right decision in asking for Flynn’s resignation — which the White House maintained was not the case — as he sidestepped calls for an independent probe.

“The administration will explain the circumstances that led to this,” he told reporters Tuesday at the Capitol.

Trump named retired Army Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as a campaign advisor, as acting national security advisor, and a senior administration official said he was under consideration to be the permanent replacement. Trump is also considering retired Vice Adm. Bob Harward and retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus for the post.