Republicans lose patience with FBI on Russia, Trump campaign ties information
Story highlights
- Members of Congress are investigating a claim made by President Donald Trump on wiretapping
- The President has not provided any evidence to support his claim
(CNN)Top
Republicans in Congress expressed their dissatisfaction Wednesday about
getting answers from the FBI, as lawmakers trying to investigate
Russia's meddling in the US election say they've continued to see no
evidence of President Donald Trump's claim that he was wiretapped by his
predecessor.
The FBI's
decision to brief the Senate Judiciary Committee comes after the
committee's Chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, threatened to not schedule a
vote for Rod Rosenstein to be deputy attorney general unless his panel
got the FBI briefing he and the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne
Feinstein of California, requested weeks ago.
Grassley
-- a stalwart Republican with a powerful post -- expressed his
exasperation the FBI hours before a private meeting at the Capitol with
Comey. He called the scheduled meeting a "positive step," but also
added: "I don't want to say that's enough at this point."
Grassley
said he was frustrated that officials haven't been as forthcoming as
lawmakers would like, and said his committee hasn't been given the
respect it deserves for its oversight of the executive branch.
"That's very irritating," Grassley told CNN.
He
wasn't the only Republican venting his displeasure: Sen. Lindsay
Graham, who sits on a subcommittee that's seeking FBI answers, said
earlier that he would subpoena the agency for information if it wasn't
provided to him and fellow subcommittee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
"We
wrote a letter - Sen. Whitehouse and myself - wanting to know if
there's evidence of a warrant issued by the Trump campaign," the South
Carolina Republican told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day. "He hasn't
answered that letter or confirmed if there's a real investigation of the
Trump campaign."
"He needs to answer the letter and give the nation some information about what's going on here," Graham said.
Whitehouse
and Graham said later Wednesday they had received a letter from the FBI
saying they would respond to their questions next week in a classified
letter.
It was also announced
Wednesday that Comey will testify at the House Intelligence Committee on
March 20 hearing and there will be a second hearing in the committee
March 28, the committee's chairman said.
In
a Fox interview with Tucker Carlson Wednesday, the President defended
his decision to tweet about wiretapping before producing evidence by
hinting -- again without evidence -- that more information will emerge
in the weeks to come, presumably proving his point.
"Wiretap
covers a lot of different things," Trump said. "I think you're going to
find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next
two weeks."
House Intelligence
Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes said he does not believe Trump's
claim that Obama wiretapped him, but said it's possible Trump
communications may have been gathered in "incidental" intelligence
collection.
"I don't believe Trump Tower was tapped," Nunes told reporters Wednesday.
"We
don't have any evidence that that took place and, in fact, I don't
believe -- just in the last week of time, the people we've talked to -- I
don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower," Nunes said at a
news conference in reference to the claim originally made by Trump
several weeks ago.
Nunes and Rep.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee,
said they want to see any evidence of wiretapping by their March 20
hearing or they may also issue a subpoena for the records.
Asked
if he had seen any evidence that Trump aides spoke with Russian
officials other than Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, Nunes
said, "Not that I'm aware of."
But
Schiff added: "I wouldn't answer that question as categorically as my
colleague. We're not privileged to talk about the contents of the
investigation but, you know, I think we need to be very precise when we
talk about this. And I just don't think that we can answer it
categorically in this forum."
Nunes
and Schiff also sent a letter to the FBI, CIA and National Security
Agency demanding information on the leaks regarding Russia's contact
with Trump advisers by Friday.
The
two leaders of the House investigation said their work has been stalled
so far by trouble accessing computers used by the director of national
intelligence -- Schiff said he has been taking handwritten notes when he
views evidence.
The two have not
yet interviewed former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and
declined to say whether he would appear at a public hearing. Schiff
added that he is very concerned about Trump adviser Roger Stone's
admission that he communicated with "Guccifer 2.0" -- who was later
determined by intelligence agencies to be a Russian hacker or group of
hackers.
Stone has described his
contact with Guccifer as limited to a "brief exchange with him on
Twitter" and any suggestion otherwise, he told CNN, is "a fabrication."
The White House response
The
White House has vacillated on Trump's claims in the last two days.
Press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that Trump did not mean
literally that Obama personally wiretapped him. But on Tuesday, Spicer
said Trump was "extremely confident" he would be vindicated by the
evidence.
"I think there's
significant reporting about surveillance techniques that existed
throughout the 2016 election," Spicer said, without providing any
examples.
"He feels very confident that what will ultimately come of this will vindicate him," Spicer said.
Attorney
General Jeff Sessions said Wednesday he never gave Trump any reason to
believe the GOP candidate had been wiretapped by the Obama
administration during the campaign.
Asked
by a reporter at an event on crime in Richmond, Virginia if he ever
briefed Trump on "investigations related to the campaign, or did you
ever give him any reason to believe that he was wiretapped by the
previous administration," Sessions replied: "Look, the answer is no."
Sessions
went on to reiterate that he has recused himself from any
investigations involving the Trump campaign and transition, and said he
was not speaking with the President or the people who are investigating
the case. He added that he was "unable to comment on any of these
details."
Senate intelligence committee
Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said Monday that he has
asked the "appropriate people" for information about Trump's wiretap
claims, and said their answers have been "sufficient."
But Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee said they have not seen any evidence yet.
"I've heard nothing. But I'm strongly of the opinion there was no wiretapping," said Feinstein, a veteran member of the panel.
Sen.
Mark Warner, who also sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also
said he was not satisfied with the response to requests for information
from the administration, saying: "I'm not sure why this is taking any
time."
Burr said Wednesday he did not have an update on when his committee would have their first public hearing on Russia.
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