Latest on Trump-Putin campaign investigation

The U.S. Justice Department on Friday delivered documents to congressional committees responding to their request for information that could shed light on President Donald Trump’s claims that former President Barack Obama ordered U.S. agencies to spy on him. Reuters reports, Justice Dept. delivers documents on wiretap claim to Congress:

The information was sent to the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees, said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Devin Nunes, said in a statement late on Friday that the Justice Department had “fully complied” with the panel’s request.

A government source, who requested anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said an initial examination of the material turned over by the Justice Department indicates that it contains no evidence to confirm Trump’s claims that the Obama administration had wiretapped him or the Trump Tower in New York.

The House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on Monday on allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers will testify and are expected to field questions on Trump’s wiretap claim.

Leaders of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, including from Trump’s Republican Party, have said they have found no evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims that Obama ordered U.S. agencies to spy on Trump or his entourage. The White House has publicly offered no proof of the allegation.

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‘No evidence’ to support Trump claim that Trump Tower was ‘wire tapped’

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate Intelligence Committee chairmanRichard Burr, and ranking Democrat on the committee Mark Warner said Thursday that they have seen no evidence of President Donald Trump’s accusation that he was wiretapped last year by President Obama. Ryan, Senate Intel committee see no evidence of Trump wiretap:

“We have not seen any evidence that there was a wiretap or a (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court order against Trump Tower or somebody in Trump Tower,” Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview Thursday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer.

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Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr and ranking member Mark Warner issued a statement earlier Thursday, saying “based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.”

The statement from the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee marks the clearest and strongest refutation of Trump’s allegations since the President first made them two weeks ago. The senators statement also addresses Trump’s more recent statement that he was not merely speaking about wiretapping specifically.

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Trump tries to preemptively distract the media from the actual scandal that is just below the surface

In case you have a life away from politics, you may have missed that the always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief, Donald J. Trump — after media pundits, without justification, declared him “presidential” after his address to Congress on Tuesday — has returned to his old habit of early-morning Twitter rants this weekend.

This time, Trump’s Twitter rant is meant to distract the media with a bright shiny object from the actual scandal that is just below the surface of recent media reports on the Trump-Putin campaign connections. The intelligence agencies have been “following the money” and reviewing intercept surveillance, and they may be close to a bombshell story that is ready to break in the not-to-distant future.

This is a preemptive attempt by the Trump administration to get  out in front of the story and to gin up the conservative media entertainment complex with its comfort zone, Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Remember that Donald Trump emerged from the fever swamps of right-wing paranoia conspiracy theories — he was the head cheerleader of the Obama Birtherism conspiracy theory after all — when you consider his latest Twitter Rant.

The New York Times reports, Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones:

President Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower the month before the election, leveling the explosive allegation without offering any evidence.

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A spokesman for Mr. Obama said any suggestion that the former president had ordered such surveillance was “simply false.”

The Washington Post similalry reports, Trump accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ wiretap — but offers no evidence.

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