The Latest: Trump_ It's disgrace Democrats paid for dossier

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on investigations into possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia (all times local):

9 p.m.

President Donald Trump and other Republicans are latching onto revelations tying Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign to a dossier of allegations about Trump ties to Russia. The president says it's a "disgrace" that Democrats had helped pay for research that produced the document.

Trump said: "It's a very sad commentary on politics in this country." He was addressing reporters one day after news reports revealed that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for several months last year, helped fund research that ultimately ended up in the dossier.

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4:20 p.m.

The editor of Wikileaks is confirming that the group was approached by a data firm working for President Donald Trump's campaign during the 2016 election.

Julian Assange says on Twitter that Cambridge Analytica reached out to his group prior to last November, but Wikileaks rejected the company's "approach." Assange isn't specifying the content of that approach.

He issued the tweet after a news website, The Daily Beast, reported that Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix reached out to Assange during the presidential campaign about the possible release of 33,000 of Hillary Clinton's missing emails. Those emails have never been publicly released.

Robert Mercer, a billionaire Trump supporter, is a backer of Cambridge Analytica. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon served as a vice president at the company before joining the administration.

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1:50 p.m.

President Donald Trump is claiming that an Obama era uranium deal with Russia is a scandal on par with Watergate.

And he's promising that the Republican donor who funded the compiling of a dossier on him will be revealed.

The uranium deal involves the purchase of American uranium mines by a Russian-backed company in 2010. Trump says that sale — reached while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state — was "so underhanded" and that it's "Watergate modern age."

Some investors in the company had relationships with former President Bill Clinton and donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Trump's comments follow the revelation that Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for the creation of a political dossier on Trump.

A Republican donor who opposed Trump reportedly paid for the dossier in the beginning of the campaign, but the research firm behind the dossier has refused to reveal that person's identity.

Trump thinks the name "probably be revealed" eventually.

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7:55 a.m.

President Donald Trump says he's the victim.

That's his take on reporting that says Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped pay for political research that ultimately produced a dossier of allegations about Trump's ties to Russia.

That confirmation comes from a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential client matters.

Trump has posted a quote on Twitter that he attributes to Fox News. His tweet says: "Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." @FoxNews"

The president has derided the dossier as "phony stuff." Yet the FBI has worked to corroborate the document

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3:30 a.m.

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped pay for political research into Donald Trump that ultimately produced a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia.

That's according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential client matters.

Trump has derided the dossier as "phony stuff."

The funding revelation is likely to fuel complaints by Trump that the dossier is a politically motivated collection of salacious claims. Yet the FBI has worked to corroborate the document.

And special counsel Robert Mueller's team — which is probing potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign — has questioned the former British spy, Christopher Steele, who helped compile the claims in the dossier.

—Associated Press writer Eric Tucker.