The FBI is investigating whether US President Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with Russian officials in an effort to sway last year’s presidential election, Director James Comey said on Monday in an extraordinary public confirmation of a probe the president has refused to acknowledge, dismissed as fake news and blamed on Democrats.
In a bruising five-hour session before the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Intelligence, the FBI director also knocked down Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped his New York skyscraper, an assertion that has distracted White House officials and frustrated fellow Republicans who acknowledge they have seen no evidence to support it.
The revelation of the investigation of possible collusion with Russians, and the first public confirmation of the wider probe that began last summer, came in a remarkable hearing by one branch of government examining serious allegations against another branch and the new president’s election campaign.
Photo: AP
Tight-lipped for the most part, Comey refused to offer details on the scope, targets or timeline for the FBI investigation, which could shadow the White House for months, if not years.
He would not say whether the probe has turned up evidence that Trump associates may have schemed with Russians during a campaign marked by e-mail hacking that investigators believe was aimed at helping the Republican defeat his Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I can promise you, we will follow the facts wherever they lead,” Comey said.
Comey for the first time put himself publicly at odds with the president by contradicting a series of recent tweets from Trump that asserted his phones had been ordered tapped by former US president Barack Obama during the campaign.
“With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey said.
The same was true of the US Department of Justice, he added.
Comey’s confirmation of the Russia-links investigation was striking given the FBI’s historic reluctance to discuss its work, but Comey said the intense public interest in the matter — and permission from the Justice Department — made it appropriate to do so.
Comey said the collusion inquiry began in July last year as part of a broader probe into Russian meddling in US politics, meaning Trump was elected president as associates remained under investigation for possible connections to Russia.
Clinton allies on Monday contrasted Comey’s silence during the campaign with public comments he made last year when closing out an investigation into Clinton’s e-mail practices and then, shortly before Election Day, announcing that the probe would be revived following the discovery of additional e-mails.
Many Democrats blame Comey’s public updates with stoking worries about Clinton’s trustworthiness and turning voters against her.
US Representative Devin Nunes, the California Republican who chairs the committee, told Comey that revelations about the investigation had placed a “big gray cloud” over people trying to lead the country.
Comey testified along with National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, who also disputed allegations that British intelligence services could have been involved in such wiretapping.
The White House last week pointed to a report of British involvement in an attempt to bolster the president’s claim. The move only angered an ally.
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