Cooper: Surprise! Hearing turns political

We can't say we were surprised.

Although the Republican committee chairman and the top-ranking Democratic member made promises at the start of a House Intelligence Committee hearing Monday about a bipartisan investigation into any influence by Russians in the 2016 presidential election, it was clear from the start Democrats had no such thoughts.

Despite FBI Director James Comey's statements during the hearing that he found news reports around the issue "a whole lot wrong," "a lot ... wrong" and "dead wrong," Democratic members continued to read such political reports into the record as if they were facts in their effort to delegitimize the Trump administration.

The American people should want to know if there was such influence and its extent, but the Democrats' effort to steer public opinion is both shameful and nullifies any declaration of a bipartisan investigation.

Time after time, Democratic members of the committee attempted to get Comey and National Security Advisor Mike Rogers to back the information they gleaned from news speculation, but the intelligence agency heads refused to take the bait.

"It's not something I can comment on," "I'm not going to talk about any particular person" and "Same answer" were Comey's answers to most of the Democrats' questions, which were based on news reports.

Comey early on confirmed what already had been acknowledged - that the FBI's investigation would include any ties members of Trump's campaign had with Russians and that, about the wording in President Trump's tweets about a wiretapping of Trump Tower by former President Obama's administration, "we have no information to support those tweets."

Similarly, Rogers said the National Security Administration did not give permission for the Obama administration to wiretap Trump and that he had no evidence that others did.

However, Comey would not say whether someone tried to get a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant to conduct surveillance on Trump.

"I can't comment on that," he said.

Since their stunning electoral defeat in November, Democrats have thrown numerous scenarios against the wall, hoping something would stick that would explain how Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost the election.

One of those was that Russians somehow influenced voting in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida, all states that voted Democratic in the last election. Early in the hearing, Rogers and Comey were asked whether they had any evidence Russians had done so.

"No," they both answered.

Later, Comey said he saw no evidence of Russian interference in even the mechanics of the election process. He did acknowledge Russian interest in the process of voter registration.

Democrat committee members also failed to make hay out of the intelligence community's conclusion that Russians had tried to influence the campaign earlier, that they sought to denigrate Clinton's campaign and that, in turn, they sought to help Trump's campaign.

Try as they might, they couldn't get Comey or Rogers to say that helping the Trump campaign was the Russians' primary focus rather than helping the Trump campaign because they didn't like Clinton.

"[Russian President Vladimir Putin] hated Clinton so much," Comey said. By definition, he said, Putin wanted Clinton's opponent to win.

Comey said the FBI had come to the conclusion about the Russians' desire to affect the election and to affect it against Clinton by mid-summer. By fall, he said, Russians had concluded Trump couldn't win, and they shifted to just trying to damage Clinton. In the agency's December report, though, it added the third part of its conclusion - that the Russians wanted to help Trump. While Rogers said he stood by the three-part conclusion, he said he had a "lower confidence level" on the Russians wanting to help Trump.

Democrats tried other end-arounds involving former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's conclusion that there was no evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, but Comey refused to fall for their badgering and their recitation of news speculation.

"There's a whole lot out there that is false ... more often than not it's people who act like they know, but they really don't," he said at one point. Those who leak information to reporters, he said, are often "one or two hops out" from those who know the secrets, he said.

Unfortunately, for the American people, Monday's hearing wasn't a good start on getting to the bottom of things. Comey and Rogers, for what they said were security reasons, weren't telling what they knew. Meanwhile, based on the often "dead wrong" news reports, Democrats already had drawn their political conclusions.

We deserve better and hope to learn more.