Ex-FBI Director James Comey has testified to the Senate intelligence Committee. The focus on these hearings was his Association with President Donald trump. However, it should be recalled that the Senate Committee is investigating alleged Russian interference in the election campaign in the US in 2016, as well as the possible collusion between representatives of the election headquarters trump and “Russian”.
Although the Komi was set to not too many questions on this subject, and he did not want to discuss the FBI investigation during the public hearings, his testimony, although they proved somewhat disappointing, still helped to understand the point of view of the intelligence community in these matters.
Komi has made it clear that, in his opinion, Russia did not interfere in the elections in the USA:
In 2016 Russia intervened in the election process in our country. And she did it with specific intent. She acted with knowledge of the matter. She has put tremendous effort in the technical part. Her intervention was a campaign of active measures running the most senior members of the government. There’s no doubt about it.
To the questions of Senator Richard Burr (Richard Burr) Komi Republic replied that, in his opinion, the Russian government was behind the cyber attacks on the system of the Democratic party, for the subsequent publication of the stolen data, as well as the hacking to the email lists of voter registration, which became known in recent leaks of classified data by the national security Agency. He said that Russia had “a massive operation targeting governments, NGOs, and government institutions” — against a few hundred objects. According to him, it is “longstanding practice” of Russian spies, in the course of the election campaign of 2016, its extent was greatly increased.
Meanwhile, when asked whether he was sure about the fact that the vote was not changed during the elections, he replied: “I’m sure of it”.
Komi confirmed that the FBI alone has not pursued the collection of evidence of Russian involvement in hacking attacks on the Democratic party. “We have received compelling evidence expert analysis from a private company, high level campaign, which has done this work,” he said, likely referring to the company Crowdstrike, which the national Committee of the Democratic party hired in order to understand this question. However, the findings of this company, as well as other attempts to prove the involvement of Russian intelligence services to hacker attacks on the system of the Committee are not always convincing.
The senators have decided not to ask Komi more about this and not ask him more questions about how exactly he learned about the attacks of the Russians for hundreds of American organizations during the election campaign. Some senators, primarily Democrats, apparently, decided to take the role of Russian intelligence in the hacker attacks and leakage of secret data as a given. While Burr is a Republican and the chair of the Senate intelligence Committee — spoke of the “possible” intervention of Russia, a Democrat and assistant to the Chairman mark Warner (Mark Warner) spoke of him as if this part of the investigation already ended and Russia’s intervention has been convincingly demonstrated.
We are gathered here because a foreign enemy attacked us right here in our homeland. We attacked with rockets and shells, but by foreign agents, attempted to strike at the most important democratic process in our elections of the President. The Russian spies made a series of hacker raids and launched a massive campaign of disinformation that ultimately were designed to sow chaos and undermine public confidence in our democratic process, in our leadership and in ourselves.
Perhaps democratic senators satisfied with those secret clues that were presented to Komi just yet we know nothing about them. In any case, they are not making any attempt to inform the American public about how it is held in advance of your expected Russian intervention. This involved the media and anonymous sources.
If the fact of Russia’s intervention is already installed, the experts only have to answer the question, joined the team of the trump in collusion with the Russian government or its agents. In this sense, the testimony of Komi must be an unpleasant surprise for all those who are convinced that such a conspiracy actually took place.
© REUTERS, Jonathan ErnstБывший FBI Director James Comey
The former Director of the FBI said that it did not consider the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak officer of the Russian intelligence — that such a statement was made by a few American officials who wished to keep their names in secret, after which he was referred to a variety of publications. According to Komi, that the future adviser on national security made contact with a diplomat of a foreign state, there is nothing wrong. Komi also emphasized twice that appeared in February in the New York Times article called “the members of the electoral headquarters of the trump communicated regularly with the Russian intelligence” (Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence), and which was given the statements of the officials, wished to keep their names secret, contained completely wrong information. He also stressed that the termination of the investigation against the former adviser to trump issues of national security Michael Flynn in connection with his contacts with Kislyak in any case will not prevent a General investigation of the interference of Russia. According to him, these two investigations “are in contact with each other, but they need to share”.
All of these statements made by the Komi Republic during the Senate hearing paint a pretty intriguing picture. While Komi was the Director of the FBI, the investigators apparently did not consider Flynn as a key figure in any alleged conspiracy between trump and Russia. Apparently, they didn’t have sufficient evidence of communication between assistants trump and Russian intelligence — otherwise Komi would not refute the newspaper article, which refers to such communication. In addition, Komi did not want to discuss other news stories.
If you take into account the statement of the Komi Republic that while he was head of the FBI, against the trump had been no investigations, that part of the testimony, which was devoted to possible collusion, does not represent almost any interest. In their written testimony Komi said that trump told him that he would be glad of any information on the activities of the members of his team. It can serve as a further proof of the confidence of trump that this particular line of investigation will lead to him.
The absence of any meaningful data on the question of possible collusion must be is the main reason that the testimony of the Komi Republic at a hearing of the Senate was devoted primarily to alleged attempts by trump to guarantee the loyalty of the head of the FBI and attempts to protect the reputation of Flynn. The senators were pleased to hear the details of the meetings of Komi and trump, because it’s much easier than trying to understand the vague history of the alleged conspiracy.
As I feared, this inquiry — at least, that part which deals with the Senate Committee on intelligence — takes away from finding an answer to the main question, did trump help of the Kremlin in an attempt to win the presidential election. No matter how incriminating the testimony of Komi seem at first glance, the questions that the senators asked him, had to quieten trump. If his enemies try to attribute to him something less than collusion with Russian spies, it will always look more like another attack political opponents than as a serious attempt to protect the national system of the United States from hostile foreign powers.
