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SAUSALITO, California – The former F.B.I. Director James B. Comey said on Thursday that he knew of no electronic monitoring of the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, defending the office after Attorney General William P. Barr had said one day earlier than the office had spied the campaign as part of the investigation on Russia.
"When I hear that kind of language, it's worrying because the FBI, the Department of Justice, is conducting a court-ordered electronic surveillance," said Mr. Comey, who oversaw the ## 147 ## 39 Investigation until the brutal dismissal of President Trump in May 2017. "I've never thought of this as espionage. "
In his testimony before the Congress, Barr said Wednesday that the bureau may have taken inappropriate action while investigating the links between Mr Trump's campaign and Russia, describing the behavior of F.B.I. as "espionage", a term generally associated with illegal surveillance.
"I think espionage actually took place," Barr said. "The question is whether this was adequately planned. And I'm not saying it was not an adequate prediction. But I have to explore that. "
Mr. Barr's statement aligns with the long-standing speech used by Mr. Trump and his allies. A person who discussed the matter with Mr. Barr said that he did not mean that the measures were inappropriate, but Mr. Barr never issued a statement clarifying his remarks.
Mr Trump again stated on Thursday that he thought "that there was absolute espionage in my campaign".
"I will go one step further: in my opinion, it was illegal espionage, unprecedented espionage, and something that should never happen again in our country," said Trump. "And I think his answer was actually very accurate."
Capitol Hill Democrats have accused Barr of conferring the authority of his office on the far-right conspiracy theories advocated by the president and his allies that US authorities have illegally monitored the Trump campaign. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, echoing the members of his party, said the Attorney General had lost all credibility.
"Barr's comments yesterday come to destroy the scintilla of credibility that he had left to be a fair and impartial person," Schumer told the press, while accusing Barr of behaving as "the press secretary of the president."
Mr. Comey is aware of the problem. In March 2017, Mr. Trump charged the F.B.I. and the Obama administration in a tweet of Trump Tower illegally wiretapped during the campaign. The tweet provoked the anger of Mr. Comey, who knew that the request was false and pushed the Department of Justice to refute it. The Department of Justice never issued a statement, but Mr. Comey went on to say publicly that Mr. Trump's request was unfounded.
"If the Attorney General is convinced that he should be described as spying, wow," said Mr. Comey at a conference on cyber security outside San Francisco. "This will require a lot of conversations within the Department of Justice. But I do not know what he meant.
Mr. Comey stated that, regardless of what special advocate Robert S. Mueller III had discovered during his investigation of Mr. Trump and his campaign, Mr. Barr had already revealed, in his letter to Congress from last month, that the investigation had revealed important facts about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
"That even tells us without even reading the Mueller report that the thing in Russia was not a hoax," Mr Comey said. "That it was real and supported – this assessment is supported by hard evidence. It is true that the Russians came after us. They will come back because they have exceeded their wildest hopes. "
Despite Mr. Barr's assertions about espionage, Mr. Comey said he would give Mr. Barr the benefit of the doubt that he would go beyond the facts and the law to protect the president.
"The only thing I can say in general is that I think his career has led him to assume that he would be one of the few members of Trump to defend principles such as truth, facts and institutional values. So, I still think he is entitled to this presumption, "said Mr. Comey. "A language like this makes things harder, but I still think he's entitled to that presumption and because I do not understand what he's talking about, that's all I can say . "
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