Former FBI director says probe into Russia\u2019s ties to Trump campaign initially focused on four Americans<\/b>
\nThe FBI\u2019s counter-intelligence investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia initially focused on four Americans and whether they were connected to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, former FBI director James Comey told lawmakers during hours of closed-door questioning.
Comey did not identify the Americans but said President Donald Trump, then the Republican candidate, was not among them.
The House Judiciary Committee released a transcript of the interview on Saturday, just 24 hours after privately grilling the fired FBI chief about investigative decisions related to Hillary Clinton\u2019s email server and Trump\u2019s campaign and potential ties to Russia. The Russia investigation is now being run by special counsel Robert Mueller, and Comey largely dodged questions connected to that probe \u2013 including whether his May 2017 firing by Trump constituted obstruction of justice.
The Republican-led committee interviewed Comey as part of its investigation into FBI actions in 2016, a year when the bureau \u2013 in the heat of the presidential campaign \u2013 recommended against charges for Clinton and opened an investigation into Russian interference in the election.
The questioning largely centred on well-covered territory from a Justice Department inspector general report, Comey\u2019s own book and interviews and hours of public testimony on Capitol Hill. But Comey also used the occasion to take aim at Trump\u2019s public barbs at the criminal justice system, saying \u201cwe have become numb to lying and attacks on the rule of law by the president,\u201d and Trump\u2019s suggestion that it should be a crime for subjects to \u201cflip\u201d and cooperate with investigators.
\u201cIt\u2019s a shocking suggestion coming from any senior official, no less the president. It\u2019s a critical and legitimate part of the entire justice system in the United States,\u201d Comey said.
In offering some details of the investigation\u2019s origins, Comey said it had started in July 2016 with a look at \u201cfour Americans who had some connection to Mr. Trump during the summer of 2016\u201d and whether they were tied to \u201cthe Russian interference effort.\u201d
He reiterated that the investigation was not prompted by a Democratically funded opposition research \u2013 often referred to as the \u201cSteele dossier\u201d \u2013 but rather contacts former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos had with an intermediary during the campaign, a finding confirmed by House Republicans.
The investigation was prompted by \u201cinformation we\u2019d received about a conversation that a Trump foreign \u2013 campaign foreign policy adviser had with an individual in London about stolen emails that the Russians had that would be harmful to Hillary Clinton,\u201d Comey said.
Papadopoulos was released from prison on Friday after serving a brief sentence for lying to the FBI about that conversation.
\u201cIt was weeks or months later that the so-called Steele dossier came to our attention,\u201d he added.
He also said that President Barack Obama never ordered him to have the FBI surveil or infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Comey said that by the time of his firing, the FBI had not come to a conclusion about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia\u2019s efforts to sway the presidential election.
He insisted that the FBI would recover from the president\u2019s steady attacks on the bureau.
\u201cThe FBI will be fine. It will snap back, as will the rest of our institutions,\u201d Comey said. \u201cThere will be short-term damage, which worries me a great deal, but in the long run, no politician, no president can, in a lasting way, damage those institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n