I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that 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.... That is an unambiguous declaration that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign.
We'll come momentarily to the closely connected question of whether Trump can be airbrushed out of his own campaign - I suspect the impossibility of this feat is why Gowdy is resistant to discussing the Trump campaign at all.
Since the Obama administration was using its counterintelligence powers, the political-spying issue boils down to whether the Trump campaign was being monitored.
Second, if Gowdy has been paying attention, he must know that, precisely because the Trump campaign was under investigation, top FBI officials had qualms of conscience over Comey's plan to give Trump a misleading assurance that he personally was not under investigation.
Just one day earlier, at the White House, Comey and then-acting attorney general Sally Yates had met with the political leadership of the Obama administration - President Obama, Vice President Biden, and national-security adviser Susan Rice - to discuss withholding information about the Russia investigation from the incoming Trump administration.
Clearly, the Obama officials did not want Trump to know the full scope of their investigation of his campaign.
In support of the neon-flashing fact that the Trump campaign was under investigation when the Obama administration ran an informant at it, there is much more than former Director Comey's testimony.
We'll come momentarily to the closely connected question of whether Trump can be airbrushed out of his own campaign - I suspect the impossibility of this feat is why Gowdy is resistant to discussing the Trump campaign at all.
Since the Obama administration was using its counterintelligence powers, the political-spying issue boils down to whether the Trump campaign was being monitored.
Second, if Gowdy has been paying attention, he must know that, precisely because the Trump campaign was under investigation, top FBI officials had qualms of conscience over Comey's plan to give Trump a misleading assurance that he personally was not under investigation.
Just one day earlier, at the White House, Comey and then-acting attorney general Sally Yates had met with the political leadership of the Obama administration - President Obama, Vice President Biden, and national-security adviser Susan Rice - to discuss withholding information about the Russia investigation from the incoming Trump administration.
Clearly, the Obama officials did not want Trump to know the full scope of their investigation of his campaign.
In support of the neon-flashing fact that the Trump campaign was under investigation when the Obama administration ran an informant at it, there is much more than former Director Comey's testimony.
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