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FBI Director Comey Confirms Investigation Into Trump Campaign (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the bring-your-own-popcorn dept.

FBI Director James Comey confirmed during testimony before Congress Monday that the FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with a covert Russian campaign to interfere with the election. From a report on Reuters: Comey told a congressional hearing on Russian activities that the probe "includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. Because it is an open, ongoing investigation and is classified, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining," Comey said. Earlier, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, told the same hearing that the panel had seen no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. Nunes also denied an unsubstantiated claim from Trump that there had been a wiretap on his Trump Tower in New York but said it was possible other surveillance was used against the Republican.

22 of 537 comments (clear)

  1. IN SOVIET RUSSIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    trump campaign investigates you

    1. Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The biggest losers in the last election were CNN and The NYTimes. They will never regain credibility.

      Because their polls were off? Weren't everybody's? If you mean being called out as "FAKE NEWS" by Trump, I don't think that's hurt their credibility at all - Trump is demonstratively full of shit. His fact-checking is non-existent.

  2. FAKE NEWS! by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's all fake news. The president tweeted that out just this morning. And if you can't trust the president then who can you trust? [1]

    [1] Note .. for the sarcasm impaired, that was sarcasm.

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    1. Re:FAKE NEWS! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Can we trust Comey?

      Effective government should not depend on trust of specific individuals. Designing laws and institutions is like designing a network protocol: You build in self-corrections for lack of integrity.

    2. Re:FAKE NEWS! by gnick · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just because Trvor Noah and Rachel Maddow didnt bother to tell you that doesnt mean it didnt happen.

      I'd expand that to Trevor Noah, Rachel Maddow, or anyone else. Nobody has presented any convincing evidence of Trump Tower wiretaps. What "NSA documents" are you referring to - Do you have some kind of special access that the media doesn't?

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    3. Re:FAKE NEWS! by Ksevio · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't believe anyone is suggesting that actual votes were changed (as in voting machine hacked or something), the accusation is that Russia influenced the election through the slow release of hacked emails and spreading anti-Clinton propaganda. The "Russia changed votes" theory is just a straw-man.

      The Benghazi hearings were proven to be a political charade anyways where even after months of investigations the Republicans couldn't find any wrong-doings.

      But speaking of asking questions unrelated issues, you should listen to some of the Republicans asking questions. They're more concerned with whether the freedom of press applies to news organizations publishing classified leaks than the actual issue of Russian meddling with the election.

    4. Re:FAKE NEWS! by ls671 · · Score: 5, Funny

      How often do you do president Trump?

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    5. Re:FAKE NEWS! by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Killing off the free press was always one of Trump's stated goals with his desire to open up libel laws in order to facilitate suing the press.

      Freedom of the press was largely lost when two things happened - ownership became highly concentrated and the press lost a diversity of opinions and morphed into Fox News on the right and everything else on the left. Concentrated ownership contributed greatly to the polarization.

    6. Re:FAKE NEWS! by F34nor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah no... the content has no bearing on the debate. The ends do not justify the means in all but the smallest and most extreme examples. You might note that we have this thing called the 4th amendment for just such events. It says,

      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

      That makes the e-mail poison fruit. The fact that they we taken by a foreign power makes the whole event into a attack on our country. You are apologizing for the FSB attacking our core mission as a country for your own simplistic tribalism. That makes you a domestic enemy of the constitution.

    7. Re:FAKE NEWS! by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem here, as I've seen many times in other contexts is that those making these claims aren't really interested in whether the claim has any foundation in truth, or even in any way properly sourced. What counts is that the claim was made. The claim can be utter rubbish, and not even make any damned sense at all (i.e. Pizzagate), but once made, it can be published and then endlessly repeated. The point here is simply to say something, anything, and repeat it long after it was debunked. That way, when the issue comes up for discussion, the declaration can be made "Yeah well, I read this from a totally reliable guy like Napolitano!"

      This, in the Creationist debate circles is known as the Gish Gallop, based upon (in)famous Creationist Duane Gish, whose debating style was to making as many unfounded and ludicrous assertions as possible during a debate, knowing full well that his interlocutors could never possibly deal with all of them in the allotted time, and then he and his supporters could champion those untouched claims as showing the falsehood of evolution. What's more, even where all the claims were debunked, he'd simply repeat them anyways.

      The object of this kind of rhetoric is simply to overwhelm one's opponents or the generally incredulous with as many claims as possible, to overwhelm the opponents and make it seem as if they are faltering under the weight of the evidence of a vast conspiracy. And we see now how it has been used to extraordinary effect, that in this particular /. thread alone, there must be a dozen or more claims that were debunked or traced back to unreliable or non-existent sources. But they keep being made, over and over again.

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    8. Re:FAKE NEWS! by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know very many people claiming the Russians altered the vote, and I think most people are aware the POTUS isn't selected by popular vote. The claim is that the Russians used a selective information/disinformation release campaign to undermine support for Clinton. And the US isn't the only country where this kind of these kinds of activities have been seen, so why it's so damned unbelievable in the US is beyond me. But at any rate, there seems to be this conflation between "interfering in the election" and "tampering with ballots" used by Trump defenders, the reason being the former has some people in fairly high places stating it happened, whereas the latter is indeed a left-wing conspiracy theory that no one takes seriously.

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  3. Re:The guy who cleared clinton ? by Duds · · Score: 5, Informative

    So the Guy who cleared Clinton of all charges even after she had classified material on a home computer is now feeding the rumor mill again.

    The globalists are so afraid of Trump they are pushing any agenda to remove him before he can repeal Nafta and H1b visa laws.

    Comney needs to get fired.

    He could probably repeal them a little quicker if he played a little less golf or spend less time getting into twitter feuds with celebrities.

  4. Re:Comey? by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    claimed Hillary didn't violate any laws

    Incorrect. He said she did break the law, but he didn't recommend prosecuting her for it.

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  5. Apology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why hasn't Trump apologized to Obama? It would seem to be the decent thing to do.

    Trump kept saying Obama was born in Kenya. Then during the election when it was politically expeditious and like a weasel coward said "Obama was born in the US period." No apology nothing. Now the bully we elected president due to the lack of choice has slandered and falsely accused Obama of wiretapping him. What Trump is doing is evil, no president should be falsely accusing people of crimes. If anyone says anything negative about Trump, he takes revenge on them. Trump is like an female dog in heat who can't control control his emotional state. Expect him to carry out many injustices we won't even be told about. As a general rule don't believe in weighing evidence or considering two sides of an issue. Plus he is old, old people's brains stay fixed on an opinion even when shown opposing evidence. They may temporarily agree, and three revert back to their old opinion. It's been proven.

  6. Re:The guy who cleared clinton ? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whatever was the problem with Clinton was surely of much lesser magnitude than Trump's people having secret dealing with foreign state entities.

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  7. Re:Comey? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong, they said they didn't find any evidence of criminal activities, and recommended closing the investigation.

    Wrong. He said they didn't find any intent to commit criminal activities, which was previously not a requirement for prosecuting mishandling of classified materials.

  8. Re:Comey? by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong, they said they didn't find any evidence of criminal activities, and recommended closing the investigation.

    No, he said she violated the law surrounding the handling of classified materials, but that the punishment for the manner in which she did so would be administrative, like getting fired or having your security clearance revoked. Since she was no longer employed by the government, firing her isn't really an option.

    But he absolutely did not say she did nothing wrong. He said she did do something wrong, just not wrong enough to go to jail. If the cop catches you jaywalking and lets you off with a warning instead of a ticket, that doesn't mean you didn't do anything against the law. You did do something against the law: jaywalking. The cop is just choosing not to punish you for the illegal thing you did. Comey and Lynch chose not to pursue punishment against Hillary for the illegal thing she did.

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  9. Re:bloviated shit gibbon by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

    you have evidence current plays golf more often than Obama did; also we paid for Obama's Hawaii vacations including 2008 vacations before he became president. so, do you really have a point?

    It's been well documented that Trump is spending public tax dollars at rate well over double what Obama did, in order to fund his trips to his private club.

    All the time while Camp David stands empty.

    And then you have secret service costs for Melanie in NYC, and the secret service costs for his sons as the fly all over the world undertaking private business dealings.

    This from a guy who basically campaigned on fiscal conservancy.

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  10. Re:bloviated shit gibbon by D00MSlayer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Meals on Wheels receives federal grants, so yes, he can cut it.

  11. Re:bloviated shit gibbon by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    official government business was done in Florida, you are not accounting correctly

    In that case the public record should show who Trump met with during his stays at his private residence. You can't have it both ways.

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  12. Re:bloviated shit gibbon by D00MSlayer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You have no clue as to how much his almost-every-weekend visit to FL costs us as taxpayers and to the local community in which Mar-a-Lago is located.

    In one month, it's predicted that he spent $10 million for his trips to Mar-a-Lago. He's done that for the last 2 months now, so he's probably close to $18-$20 million already. Obama spent $97 million over 8 years.

    Don't forget to tally the near $1 million price tag that Palm Beach County has already had to spend of their own money for the extra police staffing and overtime while Trump is at Mar-a-Lago.

    https://www.bustle.com/p/how-m...
    http://www.vox.com/policy-and-...

    Lets also consider the taxpayers cost for Secret Service to shuttle the Trump family around on constant vacations, and Melania's insistence of staying in New York, which itself costs a substantial amount of money for security on a daily basis.

    You can be upset at welfare families all you want but your Emperor is consuming vast amounts of tax payer money simply for playing golf, and will be surpassing what Obama spent in a matter of months.

    But please... don't let these facts remove you from your precious bubble of ignorance.

  13. Re:Comey? by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, having government email on a private email server is like jaywalking. It's a minor offence and the law that punishes it carries no real penalties.

    No, the analogy was not meant to relate the severity of the crime of jaywalking to the severity of the crime of mishandling classified information. I was just giving an example of the commission of a crime that law enforcement chooses to exercise discretion against prosecuting. These are generally malum prohibitum crimes, not malum in se, because no one would understand an analogy in which the officer decided to let you off with a warning for rape and murder.

    So what would colluding with another government to influence the outcome of a presidential election be like? Grand Theft Auto?

    I don't know. What law does that break? I mean, we have lots of examples of representatives of other governments influencing our election. Trudeau spoke out for Hillary and against Trump. Was that Canada trying to influence our elections? Nigel Farage spoke at a Trump rally. He's an elected representative of the UK in the EU, is that the UK or the EU influencing our election? Obama went to Britain and spoke against Brexit. Was he colluding with the UK government to influence that referendum?

    Assume Putin personally haxx0red the DNC and phished Podesta. What would he need to collude with the Trump campaign for? Clearly Putin would prefer someone who wants to ally with Russia against their common enemy (ISIS/general Islamic jihad) rather than someone who wants to set up a no fly zone for Russian planes over Syria and remove Putin's ally Assad. What's there to collude over? Just hack and release. There's no communication necessary. Assuming Putin was behind the hacking, do you think he would have done the same thing had, say, Rand Paul (also against intervention in Syria) been the nominee instead of Trump?

    So, I'd need to know what law specifically (give me the statute numbers, please) you're alleging Trump broke to gauge the severity of the crime.

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