Senators: Wiretap evidence lacking
Speaker of House also sees no signs
WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee joined the chorus of lawmakers stating they are not aware of any evidence supporting President Donald Trump’s claim that his campaign headquarters was wiretapped during the presidential election season.
Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., released a joint statement Thursday with the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, stating that they have not seen data supporting Trump’s claim.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” they said.
Burr and Warner are leading the Senate investigation into Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 elections to aid Trump. They also are examining alleged ties between Trump aides and Russian officials. They were
joined last week and again on Wednesday by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. — leading a similar investigation in the House — who also stated that he has not seen evidence to support the president’s complaint that his offices were wiretapped during the campaign.
Nunes, who served on Trump’s transition team, said Wednesday that there was no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped while Trump was a candidate.
“I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” Nunes said. He added that if people are taking Trump’s tweets literally — which he advised people not to do — then “clearly the president was wrong.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday that he believes there is no evidence from the intelligence community supporting the idea that Trump was tapped.
“The intelligence committees in their continuing, widening, ongoing investigation of all things Russia, got to the bottom — at least so far — with respect to our intelligence community — that no such wiretap existed,” he told reporters.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday that the president stands by his allegation — made in a tweet sent March 4 — that President Barack Obama ordered surveillance of his phones at Trump Tower in New York during the campaign in autumn.
Spicer was asked whether Trump still believes his claim. “He stands by it,” Spicer said.
Spicer also asserted that Trump meant to broadly refer to “surveillance,” rather than a phone wiretap.
“The president’s already been very clear that he didn’t mean specifically wiretapping,” he said.
Spicer suggested the statement from Burr and Warner was made without a full review of the evidence or, incorrectly, a briefing from the Justice Department.
“They are not findings,” he said.
The spokesman spent nearly 10 minutes reading from news reports which he said pointed to possible evidence of surveillance. The list included a report from The New York Times, which Trump has dubbed “fake news,” as well as conservative commentary, a little-known blog and several reports based on anonymous sources, which Trump has said cannot be believed.
TRUMP INTERVIEW
Trump admitted Wednesday night in a Fox News interview that he had no solid proof that Obama ordered an effort to monitor his phone calls.
“I’ve been reading about things,” Trump said. Trump explained that after noticing an article in the Times and commentary by Fox anchor Bret Baier, Trump said he told himself, “Wait a minute, there’s a lot of wiretapping being talked about.”
In the interview, Trump maintained that information would soon be revealed that could prove him right, but he would not explain what that information might be. He said he would be “submitting certain things” to a congressional committee and that he was considering speaking about the topic next week.
“I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” Trump said.
In response to Trump’s claims and a request from the House intelligence committee, the Justice Department is doing its own review of whether Trump or any of his associates were the subject of surveillance. The department is scheduled to provide a response to the committee by Monday.
Tensions have flared in recent days between lawmakers and the Justice Department on the subject of Russia, especially
over FBI Director James Comey’s approach to providing Capitol Hill with information about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s activities in the 2016 campaign.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is holding up the confirmation of deputy attorney general nominee Rod Rosenstein until Comey testifies before his committee on the scope of the FBI’s Russia inquiry. And Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s crime and terrorism subcommittee, sent Justice Department officials a letter last week asking for evidence of any wiretapping warrants or applications. Graham threatened Wednesday to subpoena that information.
Graham said Thursday that he still believes the FBI or Justice Department should comment publicly in “a simple statement that goes to the heart of the matter — without jeopardizing classified information.”
“I believe such a statement would serve the public well, and I fear that without an official answer this issue will continue to linger,” Graham said in a statement.
The House Intelligence Committee also is set to have a public hearing Monday on Russia. The hearing will feature Comey and Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency. It will provide a rare chance for lawmakers to grill the FBI director and other officials in a public setting on the allegations that Russia intervened in the campaign in an attempt to tilt it toward Trump.
Separately, newly released documents show Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, collected nearly $68,000 in fees and expenses from Russia-related entities in 2015, a higher amount than was previously known.
The records show that the bulk of the money, more than $45,000, came from the Russian government-backed television network RT, in connection with a December 2015 trip Flynn took to Moscow. Flynn has acknowledged RT sponsored his trip, during which he attended a gala celebrating the network’s 10th anniversary and was seated near Russian President Vladimir Putin. His speaker’s bureau took a cut of the fee.
The newly released documents show that Flynn also was paid $11,250 that year by the U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, and another $11,250 by the Russian charter cargo airline Volga-Dnepr Airlines. The cybersecurity outfit said the payment came for a speech Flynn delivered in Washington.
Flynn resigned 24 days after taking office after reports arose that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of contacts in December with the Russian ambassador.
The retired lieutenant general also has drawn criticism for his acceptance of foreign payments during a stint in the private sector after stepping down as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014.
Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said he had not reviewed the documents but that Flynn had reported to the Defense Intelligence Agency before taking the December 2015 trip to Moscow and after he returned home.
“He let the DIA know he had taken the trip. He was a private citizen at the time,” Floyd said.
He did not comment on Flynn’s payments from Kaspersky and Volga-Dnepr.