In a series of tweets and statements Wednesday, President Trump railed about the “real scandal,” appearing to accuse U.S. intelligence officials of leaking information about intercepted phone calls between his aides — including his onetime campaign manager — and Russian operatives

Trump’s Twitter storm came after the New York Times reported Tuesday that the intercepted communications showed that his campaign advisers were in repeated contact with Russian intelligence officials during his presidential campaign.

Those conversations came as Russians were attempting to disrupt the U.S. presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The unnamed officials quoted by the New York Times said that, so far, they had not found evidence Trump aides were cooperating in the hacking effort.

“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!” Trump tweeted.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, was among those who had phone conversations with Russian intelligence officials that were monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, the Times reported. Manafort denied knowingly speaking with Russian intelligence officials.

Trump’s tweets come just days after his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned after he was caught on an intercepted call speaking with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, about economic sanctions imposed by the Obama administration against Russia.

White House officials said Flynn’s resignation stemmed from him being untruthful to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak.

During a White House news conference Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump called Flynn “a wonderful man.”

“I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it the fake media, in many cases, and I think it is really a sad thing he was treated so badly,” Trump said.

In December, Obama imposed new sanctions against Russia and expelled 35 of the Kremlin’s diplomats from the United States, including several at the Russian Consulate in San Francisco, after they were accused of working to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.

Here are some of Trump’s other tweets on the leaked phone records:

• “Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?”

• “Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia”

• “This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign.”

• “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!

The Chronicle has reported several stories on the Russian involvement in the U.S. election. Here are some links:

• Russian consul general in SF calls expulsions ‘not human’

• Russian diplomats in San Francisco among those told to leave U.S.

• Obama rightly sanctions Russia

• The many conflicts of Trump’s secretary of state pick

• Trump’s way with words leads him into dicey situation

Bill Hutchinson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bhutchinson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @bill_hutchinson