James Clapper, former Director of national Intelligence, stated on Sunday that he has seen no “smoking gun” evidence that seriously suggests a collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but he did state that his “dashboard was lit up” in regards to Trump advisers’ and their interactions with the Russians before he left office in January.
“I have to say, at the time I left, I did not see any smoking gun certitude evidence of collusion. But it certainly was appropriate given all the signs…for the FBI to investigate,” Clapper said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I will tell you that my dashboard warning light was clearly on, and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community, very concerned with the nature of these approaches to the Russians,” he said.
https://youtu.be/MlvsrA6VidM
As written for The Daily Caller by Chuck Ross:
Clapper was specifically asked about new reports that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner asked Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December about the possibilities of setting up a secret communications channel with the Kremlin.
Clapper did not speak directly to the reports about Kushner. But he referred to former CIA Director John Brennan’s testimony earlier this week that he was “worried by a number of the contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons.”
“If you put that in context with everything else we knew the Russians were doing to interfere with the election, and just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically are almost genetically driven to coopt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique, so we were concerned.”
Clapper Says No ‘Smoking Gun’ Evidence Of Collusion, Though ‘Dashboard’ Lit Up With Warnings [VIDEO]