FBI confirms investigation into possible links between Russia, Trump associates

Under questioning from the committee's top Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff, he also publicly contradicted a series of tweets from Trump that declared the Republican candidate's phones had been ordered tapped by President Barack Obama during the campaign.

"I have no confirmation that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI," Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

He also disputed allegations that British intelligence services were involved in the wiretapping.

Comey was the latest government official to reject Trump's claims, made without any evidence, that Obama had wiretapped his New York skyscraper during the campaign. Representative Devin Nunes, a California Republican and chairman of the House intelligence committee, also rejected it earlier in the hearing.

"The real story that Congress, the FBI and others should be looking into is the leaking of Classified information. Must find leaker now!" Trump tweeted early Monday as news coverage on the Russia allegations dominated the morning's cable news.

Trump also suggested, without evidence, that Clinton's campaign was in contact with Russia and had possibly thwarted a federal investigation. U.S. intelligence officials have not publicly raised the possibility of contacts between the Clintons and Moscow. Officials investigating the matter have said they believe Moscow had hacked into Democrats' computers in a bid to help Trump's election bid.

"BartSimpson" said
After all the clusterfucks Comey committed against Hillary during the campaign he's got the utter gall to accuse the RUSSIANS of interference? He did a fuckload more damage to Hillary than the Russians did!!! Maybe the dumb bastard should investigate HIMSELF!!!

Fox News pulled senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano off the air indefinitely following growing controversy over his dubious claim that Barack Obama used the British intelligence services to wiretap Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential election, the LA Times reports.

Napolitano made the claim last Tuesday, in an interview with “Fox and Friends.”

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command,” Napolitano said. “He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters].”

On Sunday’s “MediaBuzz,” Napolitano stood by his comments, insisting he “reported what the sources told me, reported it accurately and I do believe the substance of what they told me.”

Sources with knowledge of the decision too the LA Times Napolitano is not expected to be on Fox News in the near future.

"BartSimpson" said
What is Trump 'on the hook' for? I keep hearing lots of accusations but so far haven't seen FA for evidence.

Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump's presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.

Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as "bots," to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.

The bots' end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year's elections.

Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia's operatives. Their participation, however, wasn't necessary for the bots to amplify their news through Twitter and Facebook.

The investigation of the bot-engineered traffic, which appears to be in its early stages, is being driven by the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, whose inquiries rarely result in criminal charges and whose main task has been to reconstruct the nature of the Kremlin's cyberattack and determine ways to prevent another.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the inquiry into the use of bots.

Russia-generated bots are one piece of a cyber puzzle that counterintelligence agents have sought to solve for nearly a year to determine the extent of the Moscow government's electronic broadside.