Aide says senators want materials saved for Russia probe
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., right, walks with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, following a closed-door intelligence briefing by FBI Director James Comey.
WASHINGTON >> The Senate Intelligence Committee has sent formal requests to more than a dozen organizations, agencies and individuals, asking them to preserve all materials related to the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related issues, according to a congressional aide.
The committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and its vice chairman, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent letters Friday, the same day committee members received a classified briefing from FBI Director James Comey. Committee members declined to comment on what was discussed after the more than hourlong briefing.
The aide was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
“I think they’re going to do their job. And they have to do that. Those are things that Richard Burr and that team have to do,” White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Sunday, a day after the disclosure by the congressional aide.
“That doesn’t mean that there’s anything there. It just means they need to do some things that satisfy their committee, that they’ve looked into something. And then they can have meetings behind closed doors that they always do in the Intel Committee, and then they’ll issue a report,” Priebus told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
On Thursday, Senate Democrats wrote the White House and law enforcement agencies seeking assurances that they were preserving all materials related to contacts individuals associated with President Donald Trump had with Russians.
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Those letters asked for confirmation that the White House, FBI and Justice Department had instructed their employees to preserve all materials related to any contacts Trump’s administration, campaign, transition team — or anyone acting on their behalf — have had with Russian government officials or its associates.
Priebus said that as long as committee members “do their job, and we cooperate with them, they’ll issue a report, and the report will say there’s nothing there.”
The letter to the White House counsel said the executive branch and Congress have been investigating Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. As a part of these investigations, there have been ongoing inquiries into communications or contacts between the Trump campaign or Trump transition team and associates or officials of the Russian government, including communications involving ousted national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Congressional staffers have said that they are not aware of any evidence that materials are not being preserved, but Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday on the Senate floor: “There is real concern that some in the administration may try to cover up its ties to Russia by deleting emails, texts and other records that could shine a light on those connections. These records are likely to be the subject of executive branch as well as congressional investigations and must be preserved.”
34 responses to “Aide says senators want materials saved for Russia probe”
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Trump was elected narrowly due in part to a rigged election. I hope that the materials are not destroyed by the guilty trump administration and that truth can be unearthed.
Trump Won 3,084 of 3,141 Counties, Clinton Won 57 – Snopes.com
i sat that was more than a landslide..it was a washout
aloha
Your comment is a perfect example of fake news. You pulled a quote from Snopes.com (“Trump Won 3,084 of 3,141 Counties, Clinton Won 57”), but you didn’t mention that Snopes was quoting that statement at the beginning of an article that proved that it is not true. Here’s what Snopes actually said about the fake news that you have posted: “Misleading maps and distorted data led to an inaccurate rumor that Donald Trump won 3,084 of America’s 3,141 counties.”
More importantly, Hillary won people’s vote by 3 Million votes. Officially electoral college decided by one of the slimmest electoral college votes in history, but move people voted for Hillary.
deepdiver PLEASE comeback, I am interested to know what you think of bsdetections post!!!!!!
deepdiver, get an education! Please.
Save em with HiLIARy’s classified emails.
As reported by The Hill, the Washington Post, and Axios, Republicans, in violation of Federal records retention laws, are illegally turning to an encrypted email program, called Confide, that deletes emails as soon as they are read and wipes them from the server. What are they hiding?
Pretty smart I would say. HiLIARy was pretty dumb.
You bring up a good point. Trump supposedly abhors this kind of tactic but apparently the rules don’t apply to him.
What ever works for the new guy.
IRT Allie, the democrats are walking on very thin ice. Based on information from the intelligence community, it’s not the Russians who leaked the DNC and Clinton Campaign emails, but it was Democrat insiders. Those insiders could be linked to the very Democrats complaining about the election of President Trump.
waste of time..fake reporting..no more nutting!
auwe imua trump!
@ deepdiver311 & sarge22
Snowflakes still haven’t accepted there LOSS….sad.
I’ve accepted the Snowflakes psychological denial and have moved on…I’ve gotten over them…PERIOD!
“Emily Brewster, lexicographer and associate editor at Merriam-Webster, said that “snowflake” has been used as an insult since the Civil War…”
“A snowflake was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery,” Brewster said. “They were called snowflakes because it said they valued white people over black people.”
The fact that Priebus is already saying very adamantly and strongly that “there’s nothing there”before the investigation is even done, is suspect. Democrats and Republicans agree that there should be an investigation. How can Priebus be so confident at this early stage? What does he know that Congress and America do not?
It is the same reaction that Trump and company had when Flynn was investigated. They all claimed that they had no communications with Russia until it was found that Flynn had indeed had such communication.
Right, “nothing wrong,” just a week after Trump fired Flynn for inappropriate communications with Russia.
You know, if I was a Russian puppet elected with the help of interference by a foreign power, I’d probably be nicer to people and be less of a jerk so that maybe they’d be less likely to investigate my election. That is, if I were trying to not lose my job…
Taking one from BO…”there’s no there there”
At the end of the day President Trump won and he is still our President. The Russians had nothing to do with President Trump winning, The Democrats had a failed candidate and a failed President and that was the real cause of their loss. So stop all your whining and start trying to do what our President is doing and put the Country and the American people first. I can not believe all the Hatred that the Democrats and its left wing radical supporters are showing towards our Country, no wonder why they lost, keep it up re-election is a slam dunk.
It depends on who you call American people and what you call OUR country. Now, if you are speaking through your Trump’s blinders, yes, you are right. But unfortunately, many are unhappy to say the least that a man who is a racist and a pathological liar is at the highest seat and wields great power over those whose lives are at stake is now capable of upending the true spirit of the United States of America that stands for equality and dignity for all. The fact that he called his opponent a liar and then has shown to be a greater liar is even more disturbing in itself. It shows all the symptoms of a megalomaniac and people will eventually find that he has some real issues that make him unqualified to be POTUS.
……… If Hillary Clinton had WON? Do you think the Democrats would be as adamant with handling this so called Russian hacking into our elections?
Answer NO!
Even with the fact that Hillary Clinton Gave 20% of the US Uranium to the Russians? Say what? Yes you read right!That story along with the rest of her shenanigans,would have been out the window,down the toilet on November 9th! Nobody ,not even the MSM would have reported it!
It’s only when they,the Democrats lose,they will make the Biggest Noise! Sore Loser, I can’t find a better word best describing their actions. “Sore Losers”. C’mon guys You Lost,forget about it! There’s another chance in what?8 years. So for now? Suck it up!
My comment is awaiting moderation.
@ MoiLee
Hence the new label…SNOWFLAKES.
Final outcome: “There’s no there there”….end quote BO
MoiLee, keonigohan, sarge22, Cricket_Amos, others> Glad you are keeping these losers (Dems, Libertars, etc.) in check, but I regret that I feel that it is a hopeless endeavor to try to make sense to incoherent, dubious, utterly ridiculous, hardheaded, compulsive liars of Very Fake News. Let them cheer their idiotic, brain-dead selves till 2024. I trust you all will be safe, and confident that in the future America will become great again. Enjoyed the “short and entertaining ride.” Aloha!!!
But if Hillary Clinton had won…YOU would be adamant with this Russian hacking into our elections, you’re NOT so interested now that Trump won though…You no better than the blind Clinton followers that YOU criticize…#MAGA
If if and buts were candy and nuts. Stop crying. Loser
Democrats are sore losers?! Look in the mirror. The day Obama took office, Repubs signed with Grover Norquist to obstruct every piece of legislation Obama would present, and they did, for eight years. Repubs went on about Obama’s birth certificate for 8 years. Trump, before he became President, even said he was sending investigators to find Obama’s real birth certificate. Trump was lying, of course, but we’re used to that now. Many other examples. Use Google.
the AP and all other news media still can’t believe that trump won this election fair and square with 306 electoral votes to her 232 get over it people the Russians had nothing to do with the voting machines or like us using a pencil to vote on our ballots AP and SA and senators and all news media quit being a crybaby trump blew her out by a landslide.
so trumps final electoral vote he won by 79 thats a landslide for someone who was not supposed to win the election.
Washington Post reports: “President Trump’s personal lawyer and a former business associate met privately in New York City last month with a member of the Ukrainian parliament to discuss a peace plan for that country that could give Russia long-term control over territory it seized in 2014 and lead to the lifting of sanctions against Moscow.”
Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was named in the British spy’s dossier as an intermediary between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.
This story has just begun.
So now we’ve discovered that Trump has people outside of government conducting foreign policy for the US, probably without the knowledge of the Secretary of State.
It’s a huge story. Can’t wait to see which Repubs are caught using shredders and deleting email. The trail will lead back to Trump, and I look forward to that day.
Putin has something on Trump, or else Trump wouldn’t act like such a trained monkey whenever Putin yanks the chain.
In violation of Federal records retention laws, White House staff is using Confide, an email program that deletes emails as soon as they are read and wipes them from the server as well.
Why are Republicans trying to block the investigation of The Trump administratio’s Russian ties? We thoroughly investigated Hillary’s role in Benghazi, and her use of a private email server. Let’s investigate the entire Russian connection and see what happened. Maybe the blame for swinging the election lies entirely with Russia and Trump had nothing — ZERO– to do with it.