Spinning the Intel Hearing

Summary

The White House made a series of misleading statements in an effort to put its best spin on a House intelligence committee hearing into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential campaign:

• During the hearing, the official White House Twitter account posted this: “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process.” FBI Director James Comey directly refuted that tweet at the hearing by saying, “It’s never something that we looked at.”
• The White House also tweeted that former intelligence director James Clapper was “right” to say there was “no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump Campaign.” But Clapper said he had no such information “at the time,” meaning before he left office in January.
• White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer falsely said that “every person, Republican and Democrat, that has been briefed” on the investigation has concluded “there is no collusion and that that’s over.” Some have said there is circumstantial evidence that warrants further investigation.
• The White House tweeted that the FBI director “refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia,” suggesting that Comey’s response was significant. It wasn’t. Comey repeatedly said he was “not going to talk about U.S. persons.”

Analysis

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a hearing on March 20 to take testimony from Comey, the FBI director, and Michael S. Rogers, director of the National Security Agency. Both were asked questions about the ongoing counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s activities during the 2016 presidential election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Jan. 6 released a declassified intelligence report that found “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.” Among other things, the report said, Russian intelligence services gained access to Democratic National Committee computers for nearly a year, from July 2015 to June 2016, and released hacked material to WikiLeaks and other outlets “to help President-elect [Donald] Trump’s election chances.”

At the hearing, Comey that the FBI investigation “includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump