FBI/JAMES COMEY/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/SPYGATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The former F.B.I. director James B. Comey said on Thursday [4-11-19] that he knew of no electronic surveillance aimed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, defending the bureau after Attorney General William P. Barr asserted a day earlier that the bureau spied on the campaign as part of the Russia investigation…Mr. Barr said in congressional testimony on Wednesday that the bureau might have taken improper measures while investigating links between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, describing the F.B.I.’s conduct as ‘spying,’ a term typically associated with unlawful surveillance..Mr. Barr’s statement lined up with that longstanding talking point used by Mr. Trump and his allies. A person who has discussed the matter with Mr. Barr said that he did not mean to imply that the measures had been improper, but Mr. Barr never released a statement clarifying his remarks. Mr. Trump said again on Thursday that he believed ‘there was absolutely spying into my campaign.’”
–Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael S. Schmidt, “Comey Defends Trump Campaign Surveillance: ‘I Have Never Thought of That as Spying’,” The New York Times online, April 11, 2019