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FBI director to testify at House wiretap hearing
Comey to appear before House committee Monday on wiretap claims, Russia questions
Lawmakers want James Comey to admit to or refute President Trump’s surveillance claims.
The clash over President Donald Trump’s explosive but still unproven claim that he was targeted for surveillance by the Obama administration will be in the spotlight Monday when FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee.
Comey has come under growing pressure from lawmakers to say publicly whether the FBI conducted wiretapping or other secret surveillance of Trump or his associates before or after the 2016 election as part of a criminal probe or a counterintelligence investigation.
On Sunday, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said that there was no proof in new documents provided to Congress by the Justice Department on Friday to support Trump’s claim that his predecessor had ordered wiretaps of Trump Tower.
“Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No, but there never was, and the information we got on Friday continues to lead us in that direction,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the committee chairman, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
He added, “There was no FISA warrant that I’m aware of to tap Trump Tower” — a reference to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a federal law that governs the issuance of search warrants in U.S. intelligence gathering.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s top Democrat, said: “We are at the bottom of this: There is nothing at the bottom.”
Schiff, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he expected Comey to testify clearly at Monday’s hearing that there is no factual basis for Trump’s wiretapping claims. “I hope that we can put an end to this wild goose chase, because what the president said was just patently false,” the Democrat said. “It’s continuing to grow in terms of damage, and he needs to put an end to this.” Trump last week refused to back down from his tweets on March 4 that claimed President Barack Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory” and compared it to McCarthyism and the Watergate scandal. But no credible evidence has emerged to support those claims, and the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said last week that they have seen nothing that supports the allegation.
In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said it had complied with requests from leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees and judiciary committees “seeking information related to surveillance during the 2016 election.” The statement did not say whether the FBI had uncovered any surveillance that either targeted Trump or inadvertently captured him while targeting someone else.
A spokesman for Obama described the claim as “simply false.”
On Friday, at a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump appeared to joke about the dispute by reviving a diplomatic flap from Obama’s tenure.
“As far as wiretapping, I guess, by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,” Trump said in response to a question as he stood beside Merkel.
In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden disclosed that the National Security Agency, which conducts surveillance overseas, had eavesdropped on Merkel’s cellphone as part of its efforts to spy on foreign leaders.
Obama later apologized to Merkel and said he had stopped the wiretap. The two leaders ultimately repaired the rift, and their relationship was among the closest and most crucial critical Obama had with any world leader.
The House hearing Monday will be the first in Congress to publicly address the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community that Russian spy agencies used cyberattacks and other tactics to interfere with the U.S. presidential race.
In a report released on Jan. 6, before Trump took office, the intelligence community assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the operation in an effort to hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump.
The report said hackers backed by Russian intelligence had stolen and leaked thousands of emails from Democratic National Committee computer systems. Some of the emails were embarrassing to Clinton’s campaign.
Comey also is likely to face questioning about whether the FBI opened a formal investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials — a question the FBI has been unwilling to answer in public.
Committee leaders have said that classified and sensitive details about the FBI will be discussed in a closed session.
Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the NSA, will also testify Monday.
Numerous Trump associates and campaign aides have had dealings with Russia, but no proof has emerged to indicate wrongdoing by the president or his associates.
The question of whether Trump was the target of surveillance at times has veered into the surreal.
White House officials scrambled to explain themselves Friday, for example, after a raucous White House press briefing sparked a diplomatic flap with Britain, one of America’s closest allies.
It began when press secretary Sean Spicer read a series of news stories to reporters on Thursday in an attempt to defend Trump’s claim. One was an allegation from a Fox News commentator, Andrew Napolitano, that Obama had used British spies to avoid any “American fingerprints” on the surveillance.
Britain’s General Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA, issued a rare and angry denial.
“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then-presidentelect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” a GCHQ official told reporters.
Regarding the wiretapping claim, GOP Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said:
“Frankly, unless you can produce some pretty compelling proof, then ... President Obama is owed an apology in that regard.”