U.S FBI Director got judged
Louisville, Kentucky (CNN)After
the FBI director said he had no information to back up a conspiracy
theory pushed by President Donald Trump on Twitter, Trump took to
Twitter to tease something new.
The
official presidential Twitter account noted Monday that FBI Director
James Comey declined to say before a House panel whether he briefed
President Barack Obama on former national security adviser Mike Flynn's
contacts with Russian operatives.
The
response amounted to Trump's first direct public response to Comey's
testimony, in which he also confirmed the Department of Justice was
looking into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russian
government. Comey also said he was unaware of any evidence supporting
Trump's allegations that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the
campaign.
"FBI Director Comey
refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael
Flynn to Russia," said the tweet, which was sent out shortly after 12:30
p.m. ET.
It is unclear if Trump sent
out the tweet or ordered it. The account says it is managed by Trump's
social media manager, Dan Scavino.
The
tweet suggests Obama -- and by extension Comey -- could have been the
source of leaked information about meetings between Flynn and Russian
Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak that eventually led to Flynn's
resignation. There's no evidence to back up that suggestion, either.
In
testifying before the House Intelligence Committee Monday, Comey
cautioned against drawing conclusions from his decisions to not comment
on certain topics.
"I know
speculating is part of human nature, but it really isn't fair to draw
conclusions simply because I say that I can't comment," Comey said.
Rep.
Jim Himes asked Comey and Rogers about the White House, to which, Comey
replied that it would be hard to comment without seeing the tweets, but
Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, pressed.
"It
was not our intention to say that today," Comey said, noting that the
they have not been tasked with determining the effectiveness of Russia's
efforts.
Comey responded, it's
not "something that we looked at" as part of Intelligence Community
review into Russia cyberattacks, disputing the White House.
Trump's
official Twitter account also tweeted an exchange between the Director
of the National Security Agency and committee chair Devin Nunes on how
there is no evidence vote totals were changed in a series of 2016
battleground states.
"So you have no intelligence that suggests, or evidence that suggests, any votes were changed," Nunes asks.
"I have nothing generated by the national security industry, sir," Rogers says.
Comey was later asked a similar question and said it's not "something that we looked at."
And
Trump's account also tweeted Rogers telling Rep. Tom Rooney, a Florida
Republican, that revealing the name of an American swept up
inadvertently in a wiretapping would damage national security and future
surveillance programs.
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