Released Transcript Shows Clapper Admitted Seeing No Evidence of Russia Collusion
Newly released transcripts show that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted never seeing any direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
Clapper said in the transcript:
I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.
According to Breitbart former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to the House Intelligence Committee in July 2017 that he was not aware of any direct evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
In a closed-door session on July 17, 2017, Clapper told the committee: “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.”
Those comments reflect what Clapper told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on March 5, 2017, when he said that the Intelligence Community assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election did not include evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign.
But Clapper added that it “could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.”
Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee that “anecdotal” evidence had emerged, such as people linked to the campaign talking to “the Russian ambassador on somebody that’s of Russian origin.”
Yet later in his testimony, he added that “we didn’t have any evidence of collusion certainly that met the evidentiary threshold that would make its way into the Intelligence Community assessment.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — then the Ranking Member of the committee — attempted to soften the admission, asking Clapper: “So if there was evidence of collusion, it would not necessarily have been brought to your attention?” He also cited the (now-discredited) Steele dossier, asking whether it had been “corroborated at least in part” — to which Clapper replied, “It would appear so.”
