No evidence of wiretaps: intelligence chairman

New documents don’t support Trump’s claim

• The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee both said Sunday there was no proof in new documents provided by the Justice Department on Friday to support President Donald 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,” Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the 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 law that governs the issuance of search warrants.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s top Democrat, said, “We are at the bottom of this: There is nothing at the bottom.”

Nunes and Schiff spoke a day before his panel holds its first public hearing on alleged Russian attempts to interfere in last year’s presidential election — a subject certain to include discussion of contacts between Trump campaign figures and Russian operatives. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned last month after it was revealed he had privately discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russian ambassador to Washington before Trump took office.

Schiff, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, said he expected FBI Director James Comey to testify clearly at the 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.”

The two House leaders did not agree, however, on whether the question of collusion between Trump campaign figures and Russian operatives has been settled.

Nunes said the new Justice Department documents, submitted in response to a congressional request, included “no evidence of collusion” to swing the election in Trump’s favour and repeated previous statements that there is no credible proof that there was any active coordination. The lawmaker said he remained primarily concerned about leaks of U.S. surveillance of conversations between Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

“That’s the only crime we know has been committed right now,” Nunes said.

But Schiff said there was “circumstantial evidence of collusion” at the outset of the congressional investigations into purported Russian election meddling, as well as “direct evidence” that Trump campaign figures sought to deceive the public about their interactions with Russian figures.

“Of course, there’s one thing to say there’s evidence;