The heat is turning up on the White House with news reports claiming that an FBI investigation into this Beverly Hillbillies administration has found that President Vladimir TrumPutin’s associates communicated with suspected Russian operatives before the presidential election to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
On Monday, FBI Director James Comey told Congress that his department was investigating possible ties between Trump’s administration and Russian operatives. According to CNN, the FBI is reviewing information that includes “human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings,” but the U.S. official who spoke with the news outlet warned that the investigation was not conclusive and is ongoing.
In a statement Monday, Comey told Congress that there was “a credible allegation of wrongdoing or reasonable basis to believe an American may be acting as an agent of a foreign power,” which is what prompted the investigation.
White House press secretary Sean “Spicy Facts” Spicer on Monday strongly denied any wrongdoing by the White House and said, “Investigating it and having proof of it are two different things.”
One law-enforcement official who spoke with CNN said that “people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs-up to release information when it was ready.” But several U.S. officials who also spoke with CNN said that it was “premature to draw that inference from the information gathered so far, since it’s largely circumstantial.”
While it may be too early to say definitively that collusion took place, this new information proves that collusion between the White House and Russian operatives before the election is the focus of the FBI’s investigation.
CNN notes that the FBI was already looking into the affairs of four former Trump campaign associates—Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Carter Page—for contacts with Russians known to U.S. intelligence. All four men have denied any involvement or improper contacts with the Russians, and it has not been confirmed that any of the men are part of the information being reviewed by the FBI.
Read more at CNN.