FBI investigating Russia, has no wiretapping evidence
WASHINGTON (AP) - Reality is catching up with President Donald Trump.
Hours after Trump dismissed reports that his campaign associates were being scrutinized for colluding with Russia as "fake news," FBI Director James Comey confirmed the investigation is real.
The FBI chief also repeatedly insisted there was no evidence to back up Trump's explosive claim that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper.
And Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, knocked down a report about Britain helping President Barack Obama with the alleged surveillance, although the White House had pointed to the report to try to bolster Trump's case.
Taken together, the disclosures in Monday's lengthy House intelligence committee hearing amounted to an extraordinary undercutting of a president, whose headline-grabbing accusations and Twitter-friendly attacks crumbled quickly under the weight of sworn congressional testimony from some of the nation's top security officials.
Many of Trump's most ardent supporters are unlikely to be swayed by Monday's spectacle. Still, Trump's credibility and his standing as a reliable ally for his fellow Republicans in Congress are less assured. Even if his advisers are ultimately cleared in the Russia probe, as the White House insists they will be, the investigation could loom over Trump's presidency for months or even years, distracting from the ambitious domestic agenda he's vowed to enact.
That reality was abundantly clear Monday. Most cable news channels carried Comey' and Rogers' five hours of testimony live instead of the first congressional hearing for Neil Gorsuch, Trump's widely praised nominee for the Supreme Court. The Russia hearings came as Trump tried to give a hard sell to Republicans wary of his health care package, a legislative gamble with long-lasting implications for Trump's relationship with his own party.
The president's political position was already shaky heading into the hearing, the first of several public sessions the House and Senate intelligence committees are expected to hold. His approval rating has tumbled to 39 percent, according to a new Gallup poll, down 6 points from a week earlier.
Trump has long been shadowed by questions about his ties to Russia, given his friendly posture toward Moscow and his advisers' curious web of ties to Russia. The White House insists the campaign did not coordinate with Russia on the hacking of Democratic groups during the election and dismisses the swirling controversy as little more than a political witch hunt.
Yet Monday's hearings left the White House scrambling for cover, though there was little to be found.
Spokesman Sean Spicer launched into a series of confounding arguments during his daily briefing. He touted statements from lawmakers and former Obama administration officials saying they had seen no evidence of collusion between Trump associates and Russia. But he dismissed nearly identical statements from some of those same officials about Trump's wiretapping allegations, saying it was too early in the investigations to draw any conclusions.
In one particularly eyebrow-raising moment, Spicer resorted to claiming one associate, Paul Manafort, had a "very limited role" in the 2016 election. In fact, Manafort was hired in March as Trump's convention manager and promoted to campaign chairman in May. Spicer also described foreign policy adviser Michael Flynn as simply a "volunteer." Flynn traveled frequently with the president, delivered a high-profile speech at the Republican National Convention and served as his first national security adviser.
Both Manafort and Flynn were fired by Trump after revelations about their connections to Russia.
Manafort left the campaign in August, when news reports about his business ties to pro-Moscow Ukrainian oligarchs became a political liability. Flynn was fired in February for misleading top officials about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
Both Manafort and Flynn are among the Trump associates under scrutiny for possible contacts with Russia during the election. The Senate intelligence committee has also asked Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, and Carter Page, an investment banker who briefly advised the campaign on foreign policy, to retain documents related to its inquiry.
The White House, with the backing of some Republican lawmakers, says the real controversy is how the investigation into Trump's advisers became public. They argue the focus of the probe should be ferreting out who leaked classified information.
Trump tried to go on offense in the middle of the hearing, launching a series of tweets from his official White House account, including one that appeared to blame the Obama administration for leaking details of Flynn's contacts with the Russian envoy. Another tweet incorrectly said Comey and Rogers told lawmakers that Russia "did not influence" the electoral process.
In a moment of real-time fact-checking, the FBI director made clear that was not a declaration he had made.
"We don't have any information on that subject," he said.
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After FBI Director James Comey publicly has acknowledged the existence of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation into potential links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the White House introduced a new narrative to push back against the allegations.
"Michael Flynn was umasked and then illegally, his identity was leaked out to media outlets," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday.
Spicer was referring to reports that Flynn, when he was the incoming national security adviser, spoke with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. in late December. It was reported that during the call, Flynn discussed new sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration. Flynn eventually resigned as national security adviser.
The U.S. government learned of this conversation through routine surveillance of the Russian ambassador to the U.S.
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Here are some questions and answers about U.S. surveillance law and the leaking of classified information:
WHAT IS "UNMASKING?"
When a U.S. intelligence agency, such as the National Security Agency, conducts surveillance of a foreigner inside the U.S., sometimes that surveillance will include the name of an American that the foreigner is speaking to or about. When this happens, intelligence analysts are obliged to hide or "minimize" the name of the American, unless knowing the American's name is necessary to understanding the foreign intelligence described in the report.
"If, for instance, an intelligence piece were about Russian intelligence assets engaged in an operation to influence political figures, the identity of the political figure would be necessary," said Todd Hinnen, head of the Justice Department's National Security Division during the Obama administration and a National Security Council staff member under George W. Bush. "Unless you know the answer to that question, you can't appreciate the meaning and importance of the intelligence."
WHO CAN UNMASK AN AMERICANS NAME?
The answer varies by U.S. intelligence agency. On Monday, National Security Agency director Michael Rogers said there are 20 people at the NSA, including himself, who have the authority to reveal the name of an American in a surveillance report.
IS IT ILLEGAL TO UNMASK AN AMERICAN'S NAME?
No.
"There is nothing inappropriate about unmasking when it is appropriate to unmask," said Benjamin Wittes, a senior Brookings Institution fellow and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog.
In the context of the Flynn example, Wittes said, the U.S. is surveilling a foreign target -- in this case Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The target, Kislyak, is contacted by an American who is the incoming national security adviser in the new administration -- Michael Flynn -- and that American is discussing the future administration's policy.
Wittes says it is easy to see where identifying this American is important to foreign intelligence.
"I don't think there's anything surprising that it got unmasked," he said.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UNMASKING AND LEAKING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION?
One is legal and the other isn't.
The "unmasking" of Flynn's name is routine, Wittes said. But, he said, sharing Flynn's name publicly "is both shocking and inappropriate."
It is a crime to disclose or "leak" classified information. The contents of intelligence collected under the authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, are classified. Flynn's conversation with Kislyak was collected under these authorities and therefore classified.
IS IT ILLEGAL TO LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION THAT IS INACCURATE?
No.
"If it's not accurate, then it's not classified," Wittes said. "You can't classify stuff that isn't true."
The Trump administration has said reports that Trump associates were in touch with the Kremlin during the campaign are false. Yet the White House has called for leak investigations into the matter.
"You can't say both -- that it is a crime to leak and that it is false," Wittes said.
CAN THE PRESIDENT LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION?
No, says Wittes.
"The president can declassify anything he wants," Wittes said. "The mere act of the president saying something is a `declassification."'
