https://www.roughlyexplained.com/2018/08/fact-check-did-former-nsa-chief-mike-rogers-warn-trump-of-a-deep-state-plot/
FROM THE ARTICLE:
“I have seen nothing on the NSA side that we have engaged in such activity, nor that anyone ever asked us to engage in such activity,” Mr. Rogers told the House Intelligence Committee.
This is not the only occasion in which Mr. Rogers has refuted theories popular among Mr. Trump’s defenders. At that same hearing, Mr. Rogers also shot down a related theory floated by a Fox News personality and subsequently echoed by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, that Mr. Obama had enlisted GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent to the NSA, to spy on the Trump’s campaign. When asked by Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s ranking democrat if he made such a request to his British counterparts, Mr. Rogers shot back, “No sir. Nor would I. That would be expressly against the construct of the Five Eyes agreement that has been in place for decades.”
Mr. Rogers also reportedly refused a request from Mr. Trump, made soon after James Comey, the former FBI director confirmed that the Bureau was investigating potential ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election, to publicly state that there was no evidence of collusion. When asked about this in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last year, Rogers sidestepped the question.
“In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate, and to the best of my recollection during that same period of service I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so,” Rogers said during the June 2017 public hearing.
When pressed, by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) whether he had ever “been asked by the president or the White House to influence an ongoing investigation, Mr. Rogers refused to deny it. “I’m not going to discuss the specifics of discussions with the president of the United States,” Rogers said.
But, several weeks later, Mr. Rogers reportedly told the Committee in a closed-door session that Mr. Trump had indeed urged him to publicly say that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. While Mr. Rogers thought the interaction odd enough that Richard Leggett, his deputy, documented it in a memo, Mr. Rogers maintained that he did not take the request as an order to do anything improper.
Earlier this year, Rogers testified to Congress — with evident frustration — that he had been granted no additional authority by Mr. Trump to combat potential Russian interference in the midterm elections.
“What I see on the Cyber Command side leads me to believe that if we don’t change the dynamic here, that this is going to continue, and 2016 won’t be viewed as isolated,” Rogers said. “This is something that will be sustained over time.”
He said of Russian interference: “We’re taking steps, but we’re probably not doing enough.” He said that sanctions and other measures haven’t “changed the calculus or the behavior” by Moscow. “They haven’t paid a price at least that’s sufficient to get them to change their behavior,” he added.
When asked whether he had been instructed by the White House to do more to stop Russian meddling, Rogers said, he had not. While he had taken additional within his pursue, “I haven’t been granted any, you know, additional authorities, capacity and capability, and — no, that’s certainly true.”