COMEY: NO OBAMA WIRETAP Kevin Johnson
For first time, FBI director publicly confirms investigation of Trump team contacts with Russia
FBI Director WASHINGTON James Comey on Monday offered the most definitive repudiation yet of President Trump’s claims that the Obama administration wiretapped the president’s New York offices in advance of the 2016 elections.
“The FBI and the Justice Department have no information to support’’ Trump’s wiretap assertions, Comey said.
Comey, appearing before the House Intelligence Committee along with National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, confirmed for the first time publicly that the FBI was inves- tigating Russian interference in the election, including communication between Trump associates and Russian officials.
“We’re investigating whether there was any coordination between people associated with the Trump campaign and the Russians,” Comey said, declining to elaborate on whether any such evidence had been uncovered. Comey did acknowledge that the Russians appeared to use a third party — a “cutout” — in its communication with WikiLeaks, which published internal information obtained in a hack of the Democratic National Committee. The identity of the third party was not disclosed.
“If any Americans are part of that effort,” Comey said of possible collusion with Russian officials, “then that is a very serious matter.”
Trump tweeted Monday that any suggestion that his associates coordinated efforts with Russian officials was “fake news.”
White House spokesman
“If any Americans are part of that effort, then that is a very serious matter.” FBI Director James Comey, on possible Russian interference in the U.S. election
half-century ago has there been an official investigation of such potential consequence.
The allegations “are more serious than anything we’ve seen in recent decades,” says political historian Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington
University and author of Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of
Homeland Security. “That is far from a lone instance of an illegal leak or a president fudging the truth under oath about sex with a White House intern.”
The disclosure creates complications for the Trump Justice Department in overseeing the inquiry and is sure to fuel Democratic arguments that an independent counsel needs to be named. Though Comey declined to outline a timetable for the FBI inquiry, questions about whether some in the Trump team coordinated with Moscow’s meddling are all but certain to hang over the administration for months or even years.
Just ask veterans of the Irancontra investigation in the Reagan White House or of the Monica Lewinsky investigation in the Clinton White House the sort of shadow they can cast.
Comey promised that the FBI would “follow the facts wherever they lead” — including whether crimes were committed. Because of extraordinary public interest, he said, the Justice Department had authorized him to take the unusual step of commenting on an active counterintelligence investigation.
“If the Trump campaign, or anybody associated with it, aided or abetted the Russians, it would not only be a serious crime,” California Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said in his opening statement. “It would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of our democracy in history.”
After more than five hours of testimony, Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., closed the hearing with an almost anguished plea to Comey to finish the investigation as soon as possible. “The longer this hangs out here, the bigger the cloud is,” he said. “There is a big gray cloud that you have now put over people who have very important work to do to lead this country.”
The White House dismissed the whole idea as preposterous.
“James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia,” Trump declared in the first of a string of early morning tweets Monday on his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump. “This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!” He declared, “The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign.”
Then he tweeted, “The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!”
That was advice Nunes and other Republicans on the committee took, asking more questions about who might have leaked information to news organizations than they did about the substance of the information that was leaked. They focused in particular on the disclosure that a phone call by Trump adviser Michael Flynn was captured during surveillance of the Russian ambassador. The law calls for the identity of Americans to be masked when they are caught up in foreign eavesdropping.
“Some of that may rise to the level of a crime,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
Comey predicted that Russia’s efforts to disrupt American elections weren’t over.
“They’ll be back in 2020,” he warned. “They may be back in 2018. And one of the conclusions they may draw ... is they were successful.”
“The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign.” President Trump