FBI director James Comey has said there was no basis for Donald Trump’s claims to have been wiretapped by Barack Obama, but confirmed for the first time that the agency is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
Comey’s appearance, flanked by the NSA director, Adm Michael Rogers, marked a remarkable and unprecedented threshold in US political history, putting beyond doubt that a sitting’s president’s entourage was under investigation for possibly conniving with a foreign adversary to put that president in power.
What made the moment even more extraordinary was Trump’s tweeted commentary on – and misrepresenting of – the hearing as it was happening.
If Trump or his people cooperated with Russia’s so-called “active measures”, Schiff said, “It would represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history … The stakes are nothing less than the future of our democracy, and of liberal democracy.”
They agreed on one topic: calling Trump’s accusation that Obama had Trump Tower surveilled baseless. Schiff said there is “no evidence whatsoever to support that slanderous accusation”, and Nunes – who suggested other “improper” surveillance on Trump may have occured – said: “We know there was not a physical wiretap of Trump Tower.”
