Donald Trump falsely represents evidence about Russia's interference in US election
Donald Trump has falsely represented the evidence given by FBI Director James Comey during a hearing into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.
Addressing the House intelligence committee, James Comey made the first public confirmation that an FBI investigation is underway into the Kremlin’s role in influencing the outcome of the election, and also into the possible links between Moscow and associates of President Trump.
During the hearing, Mr Trump tweeted from the official POTUS account: ‘The NAS and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process’, along with a video clip of Mr Comey’s evidence.
The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process. pic.twitter.com/d9HqkxYBt5
— President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017
In the clip, committee Chairman Devin Nunes asks National Security Agency director Michael Rogers and Mr Comey whether Russia had altered vote totals in specific swing states. Both replied that Russia had not successfully influenced votes in those individual states.
Trump’s tweet falsely claims this as testimony that Russia had not influenced the electoral process.
This is a direct contradiction to evidence given during the Hearing by Admiral Rogers and Mr Comey.
When asked by Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen what, if anything, Russia had done during the Trump v Clinton election campaign Admiral Rogers stated: ‘The biggest difference was both the use of cyber hacking to gain access to information and then make it widely publicly available without any alteration.’
Mr Comey then added: ‘They were usually loud in their intervention. It was almost as if they didn’t care that we knew what they were or that they wanted us to see what they were doing.’
He also added that the Kremlin was likely to judge their hacking to be successful, as it “introduced chaos and division and discord and sowed doubt about this amazing country of ours.”
Les than an hour after his tweet, President Trump took to Twitter again, claiming that Mr Comey admitted that Barack Obama had the ability to ‘unmask’ American citizens.
FBI Director Comey admits Obama’s White House had ability to “unmask” American citizens. https://t.co/gIo6it9NcQ
— President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017
Mr Comey in fact told the committee: ‘The White House can make similar requests [to unmask citizens] but they can’t on their own collect, so they can’t on their own unmask.’
