Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated her claim that President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Russia in a rare tweet addressing Trump on Monday.

"Like I said: A puppet," she added to a retweet of a now viral video from an October 2016 presidential debate in which she first asserted that Trump was a "puppet" of Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Clinton's tweet came after a bombshell news story reported that the FBI had opened a counterintelligence probe into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia, and after another report said Trump went to "extraordinary lengths" to hide the contents of his meetings with Putin from other officials.

Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated her claim that President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Russia in a rare tweet addressing Trump on Monday.

"Like I said: A puppet," she added to a retweet of a now viral video from an October 2016 presidential debate in which she first asserted that Trump was a "puppet" of Russia.

When Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin had "no respect" for Clinton, she hit back by saying, "that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president," prompting Trump to reply, "no puppet, you're the puppet!"

"It's clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you spouted the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO ... and you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race," she said.

In July 2018, the special counsel Robert Mueller's office indicted 12 Russian security officers for the 2016 spring and summer hacks of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

The hacked emails were then obtained and disseminated into the American electorate by the radical protransparency group WikiLeaks. In summer 2017, Mueller's team indicted 13 Russian nationals on charges they ran a troll farm to perpetuate fake news and propaganda on social-media networks for the purpose of interfering in the 2016 election.

Read more: Here's everyone who has been charged and convicted in Mueller's Russia probe so far

Clinton's tweet came after two bombshell news reports published over the weekend furthered allegations of suspicious connections between Trump and Russia.

On Friday night, The New York Times reported that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russian interests after he fired former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.

Trump said in a TV interview that the "Russia thing" — referring to the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and its probe of former Trump campaign officials — was a factor in his decision.

Read more: The FBI reportedly started investigating whether Trump was a Russian asset after he fired Comey

On Saturday, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal both reported that Trump had gone to "extraordinary lengths" to conceal the contents of his conversations with Putin, going as far as to take the interpreter's notes from the conservation, hide them from senior staff members, and order the translator not to discuss the details of the meetings with other administration officials.