(Photo: Eric Thayer/New York Times)
Earlier this week, James Comey announced for the first time that the FBI is investigating Russian influence on the Trump campaign for the 2016 election. Suspicions about the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russia’s government arose in 2016 and the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation in late July of last year.
The intelligence team has concluded that Russia interfered in the election in a number of ways, including the hacking and releasing of emails to undermine the Democratic party.
So what does this mean? By the nature of counterintelligence investigations, the FBI will likely not go after Russia’s officials, rather, it will continue to watch the meddlers to learn as much as possible from them. However, legal action may be taken, if it is discovered that Trump’s campaign members were involved with Russian interferers.
When will we know? It is not unusual for investigations like these to take up to a few years. As of now though, there is no proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
And what about wiretapping? President Trump has written a number of tweets accusing Obama of wiretapping, such as “How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” tweeted on March 4. In his testimony, Comey declared that there is no evidence of the spying Trump’s tweets insist upon.
Instead of wiretapping accusations, what is higher on the FBI’s list of priorities for now is investigating possible ties between Trump and Russia.
Alanna Shingler Staff Reporter