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US political, military establishment seeks to poison ties with Russia: Analyst

Sunday, 04 February 2018 7:38 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 07 February 2018 12:54 PM ]

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The ongoing US government probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election clearly indicates that certain elements in the American political and military establishment seek to destroy diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow, an American analyst says.

“There are forces in the United States, in the military–industrial complex, in the neoconservative establishment that want to poison rather than improve relations the United States and Russia,” said Brian Becker, the national coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition, a US-based protest umbrella group consisting of many antiwar and civil rights organizations.

“The Russia investigation, the insistence that there was collusion between [President Donald] Trump and Russia has so far been completely unproven; there is no specific actual hard evidence of any collusion,” Becker told Press TV on Sunday.

Trump said on Saturday that a controversial memo attacking federal law enforcement written by congressional Republicans vindicates him in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

The memo that alleges the US Department of Justice and FBI abused their surveillance authority in their probe of Trump's presidential election campaign.

The four-page memo, written by Republican members of the House of Representatives, accuses the Justice Department and FBI of spying on a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The FBI, the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, and its principal federal law enforcement agency, operates under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.

The memo said its findings “raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain Justice Department and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court),” which authorizes surveillance of individuals believed to be agents of foreign powers.

US intelligence agencies claim Russia-linked hackers provided WikiLeaks with damaging information -- in the form of thousands of hacked emails -- about Clinton to skew the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump.

Trump has repeatedly denied allegations that his campaign colluded with Russians and has condemned the investigations. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also denied the allegations.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

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