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.”
Classified Leaks
Nunes said Monday’s public hearing, with Comey and NSA chief Admiral Michael Rogers, was intended to focus on Russia’s actions, whether campaign officials or other U.S. citizens were improperly monitored and who was responsible for leaks of sensitive information. The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting its own, separate investigation into similar issues. Both probes are expected to last for months.
“There is a big gray cloud that you’ve now put over people” in the Trump administration, Nunes told Comey at the end of the public hearing.
Looming over Monday’s session was the case of Flynn. Republicans focused their questioning on how Flynn’s identity and his contacts with Ambassador Kislyak were unmasked and leaked, saying it was a crime that has damaged U.S. spy programs.
Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, said there’s “an agreement between the American people and its government: We the American people give certain powers to the government to keep us safe.” But when those powers are misused, citizens may be “rethinking their side of the equation.”
Comey acknowledged it would be a crime if a U.S. person’s identity was willfully unmasked and leaked. However, Comey declined to say whether the leaking of Flynn’s name and phone call with the Russian ambassador was a crime or if it’s under investigation by the FBI, saying he didn’t want to confirm the existence of classified information.
Following Flynn’s dismissal, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian probes after acknowledging that he met with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.
Trump supporters including Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and energy consultant Carter Page have denied any improprieties in their contacts with Russian officials or intermediaries. Documents released last week by congressional Democrats show Flynn received more than $45,000 from RT, the Russian government-backed media company, for his participation at a December 2015 gala where he sat at Putin’s table.
Spicer told reporters Monday that some of those said to have contacts with Russia were just “hanger-ons” to Trump’s campaign -- a description he said applied to Page, who Trump last March cited as a foreign policy adviser -- and that Manafort, who led Trump’s campaign during the Republican convention, “played a limited role for a limited time.”
Read more about documents showing Flynn’s work with Russian companies
Trump preemptively weighed in on the proceedings Monday morning, saying it was part of a political attack meant to undermine his administration, even though the hearing was led by the Republican-majority committee.
Trump Tweets
“James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted, using an acronym for President of the United States and referring to the former director of national intelligence. “The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!”
Trump said Congress should be investigating leaks that have harmed his young administration.
“The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information,” the president said in a Twitter post. “Must find leaker now!”
Later Friday, Comey left his congressional interrogators with a cautionary note: Russia may want to repeat its meddling in the future “because they introduced chaos and division” in the U.S. political system.
“They’ll be back,” he said. “They’ll be back in 2020, they may be back in 2018.”
(Updates to add hearing ending and Nunes comments to Comey in 17th paragraph.)
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Strohm in Washington at [email protected], Billy House in Washington at [email protected], Toluse Olorunnipa in Washington at [email protected].
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