FBI Director James Comey said Monday that his office is conducting an investigation on the possible interaction between the Kremlin and the headquarters of the trump. The investigation by us counter-intelligence can reach the White house and will last for several months.
His extraordinary recognition of the Komi Republic did in the beginning which lasted five and a half hours of public hearings, which were held in the house of representatives in the intelligence Committee. There Komi also said the lack of information to support the statements of the President of trump that his predecessor had ordered to follow the trump Tower during the election campaign.
Komi several times refused to answer the question of whether investigators suspect some specific people from the presidential entourage in criminal activities. According to him, the FBI “not denigrating people” who are not charged with crimes.
Usually the FBI does not disclose facts of investigations. “But in unusual circumstances where there has been public interest, to do so is appropriate,” said the FBI Director.
Komi also noted that the Ministry of justice allowed him to confirm the fact that extensive investigations of Russian interference in the election process. Last year, he provoked a storm of criticism when during the 11 days before the election advised the Congress (despite the urgent recommendations of the Ministry of justice), the FBI resumed its investigation into the use Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
This step, said Democrats hurt Clinton, as she at that moment reached the finish line in his campaign. Now the situation has changed.
A member of the house of representatives and the Chairman of the intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (Devin Nunes) (Republican of California) demanded to Komi as soon as possible to indicate whether the Bureau has information justifying the defendants.
“You pulled a large gray cloud of people who need to do the important work of leading the country. Therefore, the sooner we’ll get to the bottom, the better for all Americans,” said núñez.
According to Komi, the investigation began in late July, and counterintelligence “is a fairly short period of time.”
The hearings started on the background of the scandal caused by the fact that trump two weeks ago without any evidence tweeted about an order from President Barack Obama to put on listening of its phones in trump Tower.
“I have no information in confirmation of these tweets, said Komi Republic. — We carefully checked everything in the FBI, and the agents found nothing to support these statements.”
He added that the Ministry of justice asked him to inform the Committee about the lack of Ministry such data.
Responding to a question the chief Democrat of the Committee, Adam Schiff (Adam B. Schiff), Komi said that no President has the right to give the order for this audition.
What is very noteworthy’s Twitter account of the President of trump during the broadcast for the whole country hearing continued to fire, giving comments and statements. Lawmakers, citing these remarks, began then to ask questions of Komi and the Director of the national security Agency Michael Rogers (Michael S. Rogers).
Komi and Rogers made a prediction about what the Russian security services will continue to attempt intervention in political campaigns in the United States, since its work during the presidential race of 2016 they considered successful.
In the campaign of exerting influence, conduct which was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin (this is the U.S. intelligence community stated in January), working for Russian intelligence hackers in 2015 and 2016 penetrated the computers of the National Committee of the Democratic party, and in the mailboxes of its leaders. The resulting material they passed on to WikiLeaks, and exposing this organization has published part of the correspondence came to be published right before the national Democratic Convention, and continuing these actions until the end of autumn. The Russian goal was not only to weaken the legitimacy of the electoral process, but also in damage to the headquarters of Clinton and to increase the chances of trump to win.
“They’ll be back in 2020. They may return in 2018 — said Komi. We learned this lesson, which is that they achieved success by making the elements of chaos and discord in the electoral process.”
Agreed Rogers: “I expect that they will maintain such a level of activity”. He added that Moscow is conducting a similar “active measures” in Europe, this year France and Germany will hold elections.
Democrats on the Committee focused on possible contacts assistants trump with Russian officials. Schiff highlighted a series of events in July and August last year, and called them critical in finding the answers to questions about improper contacts.
He listed more than a dozen occasions, including a trip to Moscow, former adviser to the headquarters of the trump of Paige Carter (Carter Page), his alleged meeting with a confidant of Putin and head of the energy company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and the boastful statements of a political trump adviser Roger stone (Roger Stone) about his relations with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and prognosis of stone that correspondence Advisor staff Clinton John Podestà (John Podesta) will be released.
“Is it possible that all these events and messages had a connection and were completely random and unlucky coincidence? Yes, this is possible, ‘ said Schiff. But equally, and perhaps to a greater extent probably the fact that there are no accidents, no coincidences. We just don’t know it, don’t know yet. And we have a responsibility to figure it out”.
Press Secretary of the White house Sean Spicer (Sean Spicer) stressed that the investigation of a possible criminal conspiracy between the Russian representatives and assistants of the trump does not mean that such a conspiracy was.
“The investigation and the evidence are completely different things,’ said Spicer. — I think it is necessary to investigate, but ultimately they will come to the same conclusion as everyone else. Evidence of collusion trump, and Russia”.
But Republicans from the Committee was most angered by leaks to the media. New press information formed the basis of the material on that Moscow wanted to win the trump, and the executives of trump, as well as his close aides maintained ties with Russia.
Most Republicans were upset article in the Washington Post of 9 February, which reported that the then Advisor to trump on national security Michael Flynn discussed the issue of sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak for a month before joining trump to power. The newspaper reported that information about the discussions emerged from routine court allowed the wiretapping of calls Kislyak. Flynn, lied to the Vice-President-Penny about his conversation on the subject of sanctions, was forced to resign.
A member of the house of representatives Trey Gaudi (Trey Gowdy) made the assumption that leaks are political in nature. He asked Komi, whether shared intelligence community that information with Obama or his attorney General Loretta Lynch (Loretta E. Lynch).
Komi has recognized that, in General, high-ranking officials, including Lynch, had access to such information, but said it would not comment on his conversation with Obama and trump.
During the hearing at the presidential trump’s account tweeted the following message: “Comey denies that he informed President Obama about the call to Russia that did a Michael Flynn”. This was a clear attack against the Komi and the allusion to the fact that the leaks are officials from the Obama administration.
Then tweet trump has a new message: “the NSA and the FBI say to Congress that Russia has not affected the electoral process.”
A member of the house of representatives Democrat Jim hymes (Jim Himes) noted that this tweet read 16.1 million Americans, Komi and asked: “is that a Correct statement?”
“We did not Express an opinion on the potential impact, because it did not analyze it,” said Komi.
Nunez sought from these leaders the recognition that the leaks are illegal in accordance with the Law on the supervision of foreign intelligence services, which regulates the issues of intelligence gathering on US soil and of American citizens abroad.
“Yes,’ replied Komi, — in addition, they are in violation of the requirements of the court for control of foreign intelligence.”
A member of the house of representatives, Republican Thomas Rooney (Thomas J. Rooney) asked Rogers to explain the circumstances when fixing the conversations of Americans under surveillance people can publicly disclose their names.
Rogers stressed that the identity of Americans identified in the “random collection of information” when agents hear people conversing with those who are listening, disclosed only when absolutely necessary, usually when there is evidence of criminal activity or potential threat to the United States.
Komi confirmed that people from the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Department of justice and other agencies, including White house staff, in some cases, may be required to disclose the names of the Americans. However, he stressed that to uncover the identity of the people can only the Agency that is collecting information, that is, the FBI, the NSA and the CIA.
