FBI probing links between Russia, Trump aides
There is no way for me to give you a timetable for when it will be done, FBI director says
FBI Director James Comey confirmed yesterday that the bureau is investigating possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in last year’s presidential election.
The extraordinary revelation, and the first public confirmation of an investigation that began last summer, came at the outset of Comey’s opening statement in a congressional hearing examining Russian meddling and possible connections between Moscow and Trump’s campaign.
He acknowledged that the FBI does not ordinarily discuss ongoing investigations, but said he’d been authorised to do so given the extreme public interest in this case.
“This work is very complex, and there is no way for me to give you a timetable for when it will be done,” Comey told the House intelligence committee.
The hearing, providing the most extensive public accounting of a matter that has dogged the Trump administration for its first two months, quickly broke along partisan lines. Democrats pressed for details on the status of the FBI’s investigation, while Republicans repeatedly focused on news coverage and possible improper disclosures of classified information developed through surveillance.
Under questioning from the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, the FBI director also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate’s phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.
“I have no confirmation that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department. Comey was the latest government official to reject Trump’s claims that Obama had wiretapped his New York skyscraper. Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican and chairman of the House intelligence committee, also rejected it earlier in the hearing.
- Agencies