FBI chief confirms Russia inquiry, rejects Trump wiretap claims

Bloomberg

FBI Director James Comey confirmed the bureau is probing potential ties between President Donald Trump’s associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign and said there’s no evidence to support the president’s allegation that his predecessor “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year.
“I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey told the House Intelligence Committee during a hearing Monday that lasted more than five hours.
Comey said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a broad inquiry into Moscow’s efforts to “interfere” in the presidential election, an effort he said began in late July of last year.
“I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey said. “And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
Comey cautioned he wouldn’t be able to discuss many details of what remains a classified probe and said that his refusal to answer a question shouldn’t be taken as a tacit confirmation. “Please don’t draw any conclusions from the fact that I may not be able to comment on certain topics,” he said, adding it “really isn’t fair to draw conclusions.”
Nonetheless, Trump tweeted during the hearing: “FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia.”
It was a reference to Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the content of phone calls with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, a few weeks before Trump’s inauguration. Media reports at the time, based on anonymous sources, said the subject of U.S. sanctions against Russia was discussed.

White House Reaction
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday afternoon that nothing had changed as a result of the hearing and that officials in President Barack Obama’s administration had said they had no evidence of collusion between Trump’s camp and Russia.
Asked whether Trump still has confidence in Comey, Spicer told reporters, “There’s no reason to believe he doesn’t at this time.”
While some Republicans on the committee suggested Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign may have collaborated with Russians, Comey bluntly rejected that notion. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal was to undermine the former secretary of state’s candidacy while aiding Trump’s, as U.S. intelligence agencies found in a report published in January.

‘Hate’ For Clinton
“They wanted to hurt our democracy, hurt her and help him,” Comey said. “Putin hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was that he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much.”
As of August and September, the Russians expected Clinton to win based on polling that indicated “Trump didn’t stand a chance,” Comey said, so their thinking was “let’s just focus on undermining her.”
Comey addressed the panel alongside the head of the National Security Agency as leaders of the Intelligence Committee debunked Trump’s claim that his predecessor listened in on his communications.
Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the committee, said “the fact that Russia hacked U.S. election-related databases comes as no shock to this committee.” He also went on to reject the president’s claims that
the Obama administration “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year,
saying, “Let me be clear: we know there was not a wiretap on Trump Tower.”
His Democratic colleague, Adam Schiff of California, said there was “no crime” in Trump or his aides having legitimate connections with Russian interests. But he added, “If the Trump campaign, or anybody associated with it, aided or abetted the Russians, it would not only be a serious crime, it would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of our democracy in history.