'No evidence' to back up Donald Trump's wiretapping claims, says FBI Director James Comey

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All eyes on FBI's James Comey on Monday as Trump urged to back off wiretap claim
FBI director expected to address allegation when he testifies at hearing about Russia and election
Thomson Reuters Posted: Mar 19, 2017 4:10 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 19, 2017 11:49 PM ET

U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the Oval Office as he prepares to depart the White House on Friday. Several Republicans last week urged Trump to apologize for the allegations he made that his predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him last year. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

U.S. lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday they had seen no proof to support the claim by Republican President Donald Trump that his predecessor Barack Obama had wiretapped him last year, adding pressure on Trump to explain or back off his repeated assertion.

Several Republicans last week urged Trump to apologize for the allegations he made in a series of tweets on March 4. The maelstrom also caused tension with key U.S. allies and threatens to distract Republicans from campaign promises on health care and taxes.

'I don't know the basis for President Trump's assertion'- Republican Senator Susan Collins
"I don't know the basis for President Trump's assertion," Susan Collins, Republican senator from Maine, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

"I do believe he owes us that explanation."

Collins said she supported Trump as president, but she wouldn't side with him if he "misstated what the facts are."

FBI Director James Comey is expected to be asked about Trump's claims when he testifies at a rare public hearing on Monday about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Russia has denied the assertion it was involved in hacked emails and other attempts to influence the race.

FBI Director James Comey speaks at a conference at Boston College on March 8. Comey is expected to be asked about Trump's claims when he testifies at a rare public hearing on Monday. (Stephan Savoia/Associated Press)

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee holding the hearing, called Trump's claims "patently false" and said he expected Comey to say as much on Monday.

The Justice Department on Friday delivered documents to congressional committees to help clear up whether the Obama administration spied on Trump.

White House seeking probe into leaks to media
Republican Devin Nunes of California, who leads the House intelligence panel, said after receiving the material, he saw no evidence of wiretapping.

But Nunes, who served on Trump's transition team, joined the White House in seeking to shift attention away from the controversies by calling for investigations of leaks to the news media.

Nunes said on Fox News Sunday that leaks to reporters about former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn were criminal and that his panel was probing whether other names were leaked.

Devin Nunes talks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Nunes, who leads the House intelligence panel, said he saw no evidence of wiretapping. (J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)

Trump has been dogged by allegations that his associates had ties to Russian officials. He fired Flynn last month after reports he had discussed sanctions with Russia's ambassador before Trump took office, without telling other White House officials.

"The one crime we know that's been committed is that one: the leaking of someone's name," Nunes said. "Were there any other names that were ... leaked out?"

Nunes also said ahead of Monday's hearing he had seen "no evidence" of collusion between Russia and Trump's team. But Schiff, the panel's top Democrat, said there was enough "circumstantial evidence" that he still had questions.

'President Obama is owed an apology'
Meanwhile, the White House has not backed down on Trump's surveillance claims.

The administration was forced to reassure key ally Britain after White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeated a Fox News analyst's claim that a British intelligence agency helped Obama wiretap Trump. The British government strongly denied it.

The issue led to an awkward moment on Friday at a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel when Trump was asked about the wiretap claims by a German reporter.

Trump said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had 'something in common,' apparently referring to reports during the Obama administration that Merkel's phone was bugged. The quip left the German leader looking bewildered. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump said he and Merkel had "something in common," apparently referring to reports during the Obama administration that Merkel's phone was bugged. The quip left the German leader looking bewildered.

Senior Republican Representative Tom Cole told reporters on Friday that Trump owed Obama an apology. Representatives Charlie Dent and Will Hurd, also Republicans, made similar comments.

"I see no indication that that's true," Cole said of the wiretapping charge.

Unless Trump produces convincing proof, Cole added, "President Obama is owed an apology."

© Thomson Reuters, 2017

 

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Comey faces panel into Russia-Trump ties
WASHINGTON — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Mar. 19, 2017 10:03PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Mar. 19, 2017 10:17PM EDT

Congress will grill two top U.S. intelligence officials on Monday in a bid to pin down details of Russian contacts with President Donald Trump’s campaign and inner circle, and refute Mr. Trump’s seemingly baseless accusation that the Obama administration spied on him during the campaign.

FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers will appear before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in the first open hearing of the panel’s investigation into Russia’s attempt to tip last year’s election to Mr. Trump.

The FBI established in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime hacked into the Democratic Party’s servers and released embarrassing e-mails through WikiLeaks in a bid to undermine the party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Subsequent leaks to media from inside the government have shown at least two of Mr. Trump’s people – former national security adviser Mike Flynn and Attorney-General Jeff Sessions – spoke with Russia’s U.S. Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

But so far, no one has shown a connection between such contacts and the Russian hacking. Congressmen want to know if the intelligence agencies have found any link.

“Were there U.S. persons who were helping the Russians in any way? Was there any form of collusion?” Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday.

The extent of Russian influence on the election – and the ties to Mr. Trump’s people – has been the most nagging unanswered question of his two-month-old administration.

Mr. Flynn spoke with Mr. Kislyak in late December, shortly after then-president Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on Russia and expelled diplomats. Following the conversation, the Kremlin made the surprise announcement that it would not retaliate for Mr. Obama’s moves.

Mr. Sessions, for his part, met with Mr. Kislyak in September at the height of the presidential campaign, in which Mr. Sessions was serving as a surrogate for Mr. Trump. But at Mr. Sessions’ Senate confirmation hearing, he claimed he was “not aware” if anyone from Mr. Trump’s campaign had any contact with the Russians.

Mr. Trump fired Mr. Flynn for initially claiming he had not discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak when it later emerged that government wiretaps of the ambassador’s telephone had in fact recorded the pair discussing the sanctions. Mr. Sessions has kept his job after claiming he had not fully understood the question during the Senate hearing.

The session with Mr. Comey and Mr. Rogers will likely broach Mr. Trump’s accusation that the previous administration wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. The President has provided no evidence to support his claim and even fellow Republicans have conceded there is none.

But the Democrats may be tempted to press the matter and force the intelligence officials to confirm publicly that no such surveillance of the Trump campaign took place.

 

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‘Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No’: Republican chairman ahead of Russia hearing

Mike DeBonis, The Washington Post, Washington Post | March 19, 2017 5:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that there was no proof in new documents provided to Congress 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,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., 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 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.”

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 that is 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 that 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 B. 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.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer calls on reporters' in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House March 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. Spicer accused the news media of "cherry-picking" information when reporting about President Donald Trump's accusation that former President Barack Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower.

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 favor 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; there’s another thing to say we can prove this or prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “But there was certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation. The American people have a right to know, and in order to defend ourselves, we need to know whether the circumstantial evidence of collusion and direct evidence of deception is indicative of more.”

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.

Barack Obama has been baselessly accused of wiretapping Donald Trump's phones.

In a Fox News Channel interview on Thursday, Trump said, “I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.”

Nunes said Trump could be referring to new information about whether intelligence officials “unmasked,” or identified, U.S. citizens who were captured speaking with foreign officials who are under routine surveillance – a process governed by FISA. “That is very possible, and we don’t have the answers to those questions yet,” he said. “We had a deadline of Friday for the NSA, FBI and CIA to get us those names that were unmasked through the FISA system. We didn’t get those names on Friday, and until we get those names, we can’t rule this out.”

He added that Monday’s hearing was “just the beginning” and that he planned to continue looking into who revealed Flynn’s communications with Kislyak.

“We’re trying to get to everyone who, for lack of a better term, was at the crime scene,” he said. “We’re trying to bring them all in, see what they knew, when they knew it, if they knew about the leaks, if they knew about General Flynn’s name being unmasked. These are all questions that we need to get to the bottom of.”

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn arrives in the east room of the White House in Washington, Feb. 13, 2017, for a news conference with President Donald Trump.

Trump remains under pressure from members of his own party to back off his claims of illegal wiretapping – particularly after the furor intensified last week when White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested that British intelligence may have played a role in the surveillance. Spicer later apologized for the claim and explained that he had repeated an unverified media report.

On ABC’s “This Week,” another Republican on the House Intelligence Committee called on Trump to apologize for accusing Obama of ordering an illegal wiretap.

“To quote my 85-year-old father… it never hurts to say you’re sorry,” said Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a former clandestine agent for the CIA. “I think it helps with our allies. We’ve got to make sure that we’re all working together. We live in a very dangerous world, and we can’t do this alone. … It’s not just sorry to the president, but also to the U.K. for the claims or the intimation that the U.K. was involved in this, as well. It doesn’t hurt. And it takes away from the rest of his agenda.”

Hurd said that “some folks will probably be frustrated” by the hearing Monday because the officials set to testify, including Comey, might not be able to elaborate on investigative matters: “There may be an active investigation going on, a criminal investigation. And if there’s an active criminal investigation, we need to allow law enforcement … do their job.”

Rand Paul during the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

In a separate interview on “This Week,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., focused on the leak of Flynn’s communications with Kislyak and said those within the federal government who might have been responsible should undergo lie-detector tests.

“It is very, very important that whoever released that go to jail, because you cannot have members of the intelligence community listening to the most private and highly classified information and then releasing that to the New York Times,” Paul said. “There can only be a certain handful of people who did that. I would bring them all in. They would have to take lie-detector tests. And, I would say, including the political people, because some political people knew about this as well.”

Paul said, using a term increasingly favoured by conservatives for members of the federal bureaucracy, “You will get a ‘deep state.’ You will have an intelligence community that has enormous power if that happens.”

Hurd, however, pushed back on the notion that a deep state was seeking to undermine Trump. He said, “I spent 9 1/2 years as an undercover officer. I was the dude in the back alleys at 4 in the morning collecting intelligence to protect our homeland. … The men and the women in the CIA, they do their job regardless of who is in the White House. Same for NSA. Same for FBI. These men and women are putting themselves in harm’s way.”

If true, the alleged campaign of political interference by Russia, Hurd said, would “go down in the history of Mother Russia as the greatest covert action campaign” it had ever pursued.

“It created a wedge, whether real or perceived, between the White House, the intelligence community and the American public,” he said. “And that’s why, as we go through this review and investigation, it has to be bipartisan. It has to be thorough. And it has to be thoughtful, because we are feeding into this covert-action narrative that the Russians are trying to create.”

 

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Trump's wiretapping accusation comes to a head at Comey hearing
By Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 7:27 AM ET, Mon March 20, 2017

http://bbs.comefromchina.com/javascript:void(0);

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(CNN)The bizarre saga of President Donald Trump's claims that he was wiretapped by President Barack Obama last year reaches a dramatic climax Monday with FBI Director James Comey's testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.

It's a moment of political theater that could end in humiliation for Trump, with Comey expected to say that there was no wiretapping, debunking allegations that Trump has repeatedly refused to withdraw.

The hearing could also shed light on the state of FBI investigations into the extent of Russian meddling in the election campaign. Republicans hope Comey will state that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump aides and officials from Moscow, a move that could begin to break up a cloud of Russian intrigue that has stifled the early weeks of the administration.

Trump was trying to shift attention away from the wiretapping claims in a series of Monday morning tweets.
"James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!" Trump wrote shortly after 6:30 a.m. ET, followed by: "The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign. Big advantage in Electoral College & lost!"

The controversy over the wiretapping claims was unleashed by stunning early morning tweets from the President at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida two weeks ago. He drew parallels to Watergate and McCarthyism and said Obama was a "Bad (or sick) guy!" for ordering surveillance of his New York residence -- allegations the former president quickly denied through a spokesman.

In one sense, the strange controversy over Trump's tweets has left the President in a position where he is most comfortable politically — at odds with the media and the political and intelligence establishment in Washington.

But it has also evolved into a political distraction at a time when Trump is facing fights over Obamacare repeal and the budget that will help define his first 100 days in office. This week, for example, the administration should benefit from favorable coverage of the confirmation hearings of Trump's respected Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch, but the Intelligence Committee hearing has the capacity to overshadow the judge's testimony.

Comey's appearance will highlight the strange, starring role of the FBI director in an election that many Democrats believe was tilted toward Trump by Comey's interventions related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. The FBI chief now finds himself presiding over a politically explosive investigation that could include the behavior of aides to the sitting President amid claims by Democrats of nefarious dealings between Trump's campaign inner circle and Russian political and intelligence officials.

Trump's failure to provide evidence for his wiretapping accusation -- effectively an allegation of criminal wrongdoing against the former administration -- or to draw back the claims tied his White House in knots as it sought to explain and finesse the tweets while sparing the President embarrassment.

But the effort stumbled as every key congressional figure associated with intelligence oversight said there was no evidence of wiretapping. Comey was "incredulous" about Trump's tweets, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The administration's isolation was clear on the eve of the hearing Sunday.

"Was there a physical wiretap of Trump Tower? No ... there never was," Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told "Fox News Sunday."

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, added on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I hope that we can put an end to this wild goose chase because what the President said was just patently false."

 

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James Comey: ‘No evidence’ to back Trump’s claims about Obama wiretap

 

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Comey knocks down Trump's wiretap claim

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey confirmed Monday that the bureau is investigating possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of President Donald Trump as part of a broader probe of Russian interference in last year's presidential election.

The extraordinary revelation, and the first public confirmation of an investigation that began last summer, came at the outset of Comey's opening statement in a congressional hearing examining Russian meddling and possible connections between Moscow and Trump's campaign.

He acknowledged that the FBI does not ordinarily discuss ongoing investigations, but said he'd been authorized to do so given the extreme public interest in this case.

"This work is very complex, and there is no way for me to give you a timetable for when it will be done," Comey told the House Intelligence Committee.

Under questioning from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, he also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate's phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.

"I have no confirmation that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

He also disputed allegations that British intelligence services were involved in the wiretapping.

© AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta FBI Director James Comey.
Comey was the latest government official to reject Trump's claims, made without any evidence, that Obama had wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the campaign. Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican and chairman of the House intelligence committee, also rejected it earlier in the hearing.

Comey was testifying along with National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers.

Trump took to Twitter before the hearing began, accusing Democrats of making up allegations about his campaign associates' contact with Russia during the election. He said Congress and the FBI should be going after media leaks and maybe even Hillary Clinton instead.

"The real story that Congress, the FBI and others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!" Trump tweeted early Monday as news coverage on the Russia allegations dominated the morning's cable news.

Trump also suggested, without evidence, that Clinton's campaign was in contact with Russia and had possibly thwarted a federal investigation. U.S. intelligence officials have not publicly raised the possibility of contacts between the Clintons and Moscow. Officials investigating the matter have said they believe Moscow had hacked into Democrats' computers in a bid to help Trump's election bid.

Monday's hearing, one of several by congressional panels probing allegations of Russian meddling, could allow for the greatest public accounting to date of investigations that have shadowed the Trump administration in its first two months.

The top two lawmakers on the committee said Sunday that documents the Justice Department and FBI delivered late last week offered no evidence that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower, the president's New York City headquarters.

But the panel's ranking Democrat said the material offered circumstantial evidence that American citizens colluded with Russians in Moscow's efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

"There was circumstantial evidence of collusion; there is direct evidence, I think, of deception," Schiff said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''There's certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation."

Nunes said: "For the first time the American people, and all the political parties now, are paying attention to the threat that Russia poses."

"We know that the Russians were trying to get involved in our campaign, like they have for many decades. They're also trying to get involved in campaigns around the globe and over in Europe," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a similar hearing for later in the month.

Though Comey would not discuss specific evidence, we went far beyond his testimony from a hearing in January, when he refused to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation exploring possible connections between Trump associates and Russia, consistent with the FBI's longstanding policy of not publicly discussing its work.

His appearances on Capitol Hill since then have occurred in classified settings, often with small groups of lawmakers, and he has made no public statements connected to the Trump campaign or Russia.

Any lack of detail from Comey on Monday would likely be contrasted with public comments he made last year when closing out an investigation into Clinton's email practices and then, shortly before Election Day, announcing that the probe would be revived following the discovery of additional emails.

 

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[向问天]

浏览附件669228

村长，您可以休息一下。

本来就是指责FBI监视川普，现在让他作证，而不是在被告席上。相当于要罪犯证明自己是罪犯。现在这个结果是正常的，否则才是费解的。

 

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[冷笑9声]

村长，您可以休息一下。

本来就是指责FBI监视川普，现在让他作证，而不是在被告席上。相当于要罪犯证明自己是罪犯。现在这个结果是正常的，否则才是费解的。

我觉得别说监听，就是现在把川朴阵营和俄罗斯的去年的通话调出来，按照维基解密的爆料来说，完全办的到啊。。。全都是电子传输的大数据。。。。难的是怎么把信息灭掉。
按照逻辑八卦一下：FBI重点监察俄罗斯，摸到了川朴阵营，在没有法官授权，非法的情况下，利用手中电子特权，整到了川朴的大料。 因为手段非法，所以没人敢报，只敢地下传播。。。