Former US intel chief: No evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia

DEBKAfile was founded by a team of journalists in June 2000 as an independent Internet Web site, providing an intelligence and security news service. May 9, 2017, 7:46 AM (IDT)

James Clapper, former US Director of National Intelligence, has said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ show that he is unaware of any evidence that the Russian government colluded with the Trump campaign during the US election, but still believes contacts existed. “We didn’t include evidence in our report that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report,” Clapper said, referring to a paper compiled by the NSA, FBI and CIA, together with the office of the DNI.

In his testimony Monday before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on alleged Russian interference in the 2016, Clapper said he doesn’t have any evidence that Moscow influenced voter tallies on Election Day. But, he added: “Russia’s influence in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election is the “high-water mark of their efforts since the 1960s to disrupt and influence our elections.”

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