Russia hearing: Comey says no information to confirm Trump's wiretap claims – as it happened

Rogers, the NSA director, in his opening statement, notes that the intelligence community had concluded that Russia had sought to tamper with cyberattacks in the US election: “There is no change in our confidence level on the assessment.”

Rogers: “I welcome your investigation of Russian activities ... in the elections.”

20 Mar 201710.27 EDT

Spencer Ackerman

Splits between the Republican and Democratic membership were evident from the very start of the hearing. Chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican and a member of Trump’s transition team, reiterated that two terms of the committee’s focus are on terrain favorable to the White House: whether Trump’s team was placed under “improper surveillance,” as Trump has alleged since 4 March, and exposing leakers within the government and the intelligence agency that have contradicted Trump on ties to Russia.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, sought to keep the focus on the election hack itself, arguing that the US will be subject to a repeat in future elections without exposure. If Trump or his people cooperated with Russia’s so-called “active measures”, Schiff said, “it would represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history.”

They agreed on one topic: calling Trump’s accusation that Obama had Trump Tower surveilled baseless. Schiff said there is “no evidence whatsoever to support that slanderous accusation,” and Nunes – who suggested other “improper” surveillance on Trump may have occurred – said: “We know there was not a physical wiretap of Trump Tower.”

20 Mar 201710.26 EDT

Julian Borger

Schiff spends a lot of his opening remarks on Christopher Steele’s dossier. That strikes me as significant. He would know enough to know if it has been totally debunked by the US intelligence committee.

For more on Steele:

Schiff lays out the case for ties between the Trump camp and Russian intelligence.

What was happening in July-August last year? Were US persons involved?

In July, Carter Page... [Trump adviser] travels to Moscow and gives a speech critical of the United States, and met the former head of Russian gas giant Rosneft, a Putin confidant, who may have offered Page a sweetheart deal of some kind, according to former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

Mid-July: Paul Manafort attempts GOP convention. Page, back from Moscow, also attends. According to Steele, it was Manafort who chose Page. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak meets at convention with Page and Trump adviser JD Gordon, and with now-attorney general Jeff Sessions. GOP platform is changed, deleting language of support for providing weapons to Ukrainian forces.

Later in July: first Wikileaks emails pertaining to Clinton’s campaign emerge. Intelligence agencies conclude the attacks were a Russian effort.

Late July: Trump praises Wikileaks and invites hackers to go after Clinton’s emails.

August: Roger Stone boasts that he is in touch with Julian Assange and that more documents were coming.

August: Stone predicts Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta will have his time “in the barrel” – his emails published. “Stone shows remarkable prescience.”

November: Trump wins election. Appoints Michael Flynn NSA. Flynn has been paid by RT and others. Flynn talks with Kislyak in December about sanctions and lies about it. Veep Mike Pence misinforms the public about it. President does nothing.

Schiff asks: Now is it possible that the removal of the Ukraine provision from the Republican platform was a coincidence? That Sessions failed to tell of Kislyak meeting? That Flynn lied about meeting Kislyak? That Rosneft sold a 19% share, which Page may have profited from? That Stone predicted Podesta would be hacked?

Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated, and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence? It is possible, but it is also possible that they are not unrelated ...

We owe it to the country to find out.

Schiff says the committee will explore “the potential involvement of US citizens in a Russian attack on our democracy.”

Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff is reading an opening statement. He portrays the purpose of the hearing quite differently, saying “we do not yet know whether the Russian operation had help from US citizens, including people with the Trump campaign ... If the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, aided or abetted the Russians, it would not only be a serious crime, it would be one of the most shocking” betrayals of the national trust in history.

We will never know whether the Russian action was determinative in such a close election...Yt does not matter... The Russians successfully meddled in our democracy, and our intelligence agencies have concluded that they will do so again.

The House intelligence committee hearing is live. Chairman Devin Nunes of California, a Republican, is reading an opening statement.

Nunes says the questions at hand include Russia’s tampering in the US election – and then two questions favorable to Trump: was any surveillance conducted appropriate? And where are these intelligence community leaks coming from?

Nunes says at the top that there was no tap of Trump Tower, as the president continues to insist.

We know there was not a physical wiretap at Trump Tower. However it is possible that other surveillance technology was used against President Trump and his associates.

Trump’s still tweeting, first about CNN’s polling – on a day when Galliup has showing his approval rating at 37%:

And then more misdirection on his allies’ Russia ties:

We’ve placed a video feed of the House select committee on intelligence hearing atop the blog. It’s due to start in 10 minutes.

The Gorsuch hearing starts at 11am ET. We’ll post a feed when the time comes.

Hello and welcome to our live-blog coverage of a high-stakes day on Capitol Hill for Donald Trump. His supreme court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, will begin what are expected to be days of testimony before the Senate. At the start of the process, Gorsuch appears to enjoy reasonable goodwill on both sides of the aisle, although Democrats have doubts and have not forgotten their Republican colleagues’ terminal stalling on Barack Obama’s last nominee, Merrick Garland.

Read further on Gorsuch:

The action the president is focused on this morning, however, is the testimony of a couple of intelligence directors, FBI director James Comey and NSA director Mike Rogers, about ties between Trump associates and Russia. The two are appearing before the House intelligence committee for the first day of its hearings into Russia’s efforts to influence last year’s presidential election.

Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said on Sunday that “there is circumstantial evidence of collusion” between the Trump team and Moscow. “There is direct evidence, I think, of deception and that’s where we begin the investigation.”

Trump denied that charge this morning on Twitter, pointing to a statement a couple of weeks ago by former director of national intelligence James Clapper that he’d seen no evidence of such collusion. (Clapper added that such evidence “could have unfolded or become available in the time after I left the government”.)

Comey is also expected to face questions about Trump’s incendiary claim that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the election, a claim that only Trump and his press secretary seem to believe. The president and Sean Spicer dug themselves further into this hole last week by seeming to endorse a Fox News item claiming British intelligence had helped with the supposed tapping, an allegation the British furiously denied and Fox News disavowed.

Read further on Comey:

In addition, Trump and his health secretary, Tom Price, have more meetings today with Republicans in an effort to get the GOP healthcare bill through a House vote expected later this week. Trump will cap the day with an evening rally in Louisville, Kentucky, to pitch the bill.