The FBI is investigating whether any Trump campaign officials colluded with the Russian government, Director James Comey testified to Congress in a public session Monday, officially confirming President Trump’s associates are being probed.
Mr. Comey also firmly shot down Mr. Trump’s claim that President Obama had “tapped” Trump Tower, saying no component of the Justice Department did anything of the sort.
“The department has no information that supports those tweets,” Mr. Comey said.
Mr. Comey refused to say whether there was an effort to get a warrant to surveil Trump Tower. He cautioned against reading into that, though, saying he wouldn’t talk at all about use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts and warrants in order to protect the secrecy of that arrangement.
As for his announced probe into the Trump campaign, Mr. Comey said he couldn’t get into any more details because of the ongoing investigation. In particular, he said he couldn’t disclose which people were targets, nor could he give a target date for concluding the probe.
He appeared alongside Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, who likewise declined to get into specifics though he said his intelligence collection efforts show Russia is trying to interfere with U.S. operations.
Adm. Rogers also shot down White House claims that the previous administration used British intelligence to try to surveil the Trump campaign.
“I’ve seen nothing on the NSA side that we engaged in such activity, nor evidence that anyone asked us to engage in such activity,” he testified.
The Washington Times
